


Rewriting The Stars

by ScarlettsLetters



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beach Sex, Bottom Steve Rogers, Boys Kissing, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Flashbacks, Light Bondage, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Rogers's Butt, Top Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 62,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarlettsLetters/pseuds/ScarlettsLetters
Summary: Bucky Barnes faces life imprisonment at the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed in Vienna, Austria. Even an innocent verdict cannot wash away the guilt from his hands or the memory of the Winter Soldier from his mind.Driven by love and duty, Steve Rogers will move heaven and earth to save the man he cares about more than anyone else.





	1. Justice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cryofreeze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryofreeze/gifts).



> I owe so much thanks to Cryofreeze for her beautiful, inspiring artwork. This fic would not have happened without that igniting spark and it's been a true collaboration in every sense. So let's take it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Themesong: [Rewrite the Stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdjR2lvIfJ4) \- Zac Efron, Zendaya  
> Major Arcana: [Justice](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/justice/)

"Captain Steven Rogers of the United States."

Wearing his tailored blue suit, the blond man cuts an impressive figure, even seated behind the plain table before the collective representatives of justice. He gazes up at the senior members in their severe black robes and the bank of court reporters, their fingers poised over the keyboards and headsets discreetly in place. All await him. He nods once the lead judge, Philippe Morrison, ceases to speak, his cue to begin.

New York was a concession to the International Criminal Court based in The Hague. By rights this trial to determine whether the Winter Soldier committed atrocities in Vienna should be held somewhere among Dutch canals and tulip fields.

By rights, Steve Rogers is merely a formality among a procession of other witnesses over the past six weeks. But the unimpeachable character established since the Forties still resonates powerfully for the lawmakers assembled to determine the fate of Bucky Barnes.

The charges lined up against him carry severe repercussions. Crimes against humanity, a concept first sown at Nuremberg, not that Steve or Bucky lived to see the outcome. It sickens him a little to read the list and hear prosecutors and defense attorneys present their cases for and against his best friend's innocence.

"I solemnly declare I will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," Steve says, his hand crossed over his heart.

"You may begin," the judge says. "Please recount for the court the events in Vienna, Austria."

"Your Honour, I was in Vienna when the bomb planted in a white van detonated outside the United Nations building. The plumes of smoke rising over a symbol of international cooperation and peace will remain with me for a long time.”

Not more than five yards away, Bucky glances up through his loose chestnut-brown hair. Attorneys, barristers, and a few well-placed guards all hang suspended on Steve's every word, and he has hardly begun. No other witness except one commands the same importance as Captain America. Beyond the string of ballistics experts, pedestrians, bureaucratic flunkies, paramedics, and UN officials called as witnesses for the _Winter Soldier_ trial, Steve Rogers takes the cake for the highest profile person on the stand.

“My first instinct was to run and see how I could help in an unofficial capacity. I wasn’t alone. Hundreds of other people risked their lives to run to the UN City complex and offer what assistance they could. The scene looked like a battlefield, awash in smoke, bloodied survivors staggering out from the towers,” he says.

Every word lands precise and clear for the chamber to hear. Translators diligently repeat his statements into a polyglot of languages -- German, French, Russian, Xhosa, Mandarin.

“One face I never saw in the crowd was James Buchanan Barnes. Given I spent the better part of eighteen months searching for him, scanning for him became reflexive.”

For being at the center of the storm, Bucky looks far better than the moment he fell into Everett Ross’ clutches in Berlin, and certainly when he vanished into the Wakandan mists. Gone are the lines carved into his brow, the ponderous weight of unmentionable crimes whispered in hushed fear over the last fifty years. The bruising from lack of sleep no longer stains his frost-blue eyes, though they will never lose their icy stare.

_Ma used to say he had old eyes, even back then_. Steve forces himself not to check on Bucky, the habit hard to quell. His testimony relies on honesty and directness, guiding them along with the ghosts of the past on that balmy day.

It hurts to see the one sleeve of Bucky's suit jacket pinned up neatly, though strategic on Barnes’ legal team. His suit serves as a reminder for everyone the Winter Soldier and the disabled war veteran do not co-exist in the same space. More practically, giving him the prosthetic arm amounts to toting a high-powered weapon into a courtroom -- something the trial justices of the ICC would never concede to.

Steve pauses for a moment, his lips compressing. Only a few beats, but they count. Judges shuffle paper copies of his testimony, prepared and reviewed thoroughly by a phalanx of lawyers the week before. Lodging his statement officially would have been enough, but he insisted on entering the room.

For Bucky.

“Immediately, forces mobilized to capture the suspect. Even as ambulances rushed to the scene of the attack, channel ORF interrupted their programming with a news bulletin. My heart sank when I saw the blurry photograph of a man in a hooded black jacket and the banner below. His identity was widely broadcast as the Winter Soldier. I know him as James Barnes. Bucky.”

The attention surely wavers between Steve and the accused isolated from the rest on the higher platform, where cameras record his every movement and nuanced expression. Surely somewhere in the belly of the building, psychologists disassemble his reactions. SHIELD would do the same. Maria Hill is the sort of resourceful woman to find such a thing.

He recites the grueling manhunt from Vienna to Bucharest, tracking Bucky down into a spartan flat outside the city center in Berlin. The desperate run through the viaduct holds everyone rapt, even Bucky himself, as Steve weaves a tale about loyalty to a friend and determination no one else be hurt, even if that meant risking his own life to bring an unknown assailant in. His certainty that Bucky Barnes would never willingly attack innocent people never wavers, a conviction strong as the support beams holding up the building.

Their discoveries of Zemo’s interference, the intention to frame the Winter Soldier by planting photographs and video feeds with key resources in European media, all comes out word by word.

“Bucky Barnes was not a mass murderer, as depicted, but a carefully selected bogeyman meant to conceal the true perpetrator. Helmut Zemo deliberately triggered the bomb out of revenge for his countrymen and the civil war that directly led to the death of his wife. He used the cover of the Winter Soldier to distract the investigator and sow discord,” Steve says.

“Could Mr. Zemo have ordered the accused to commit the act?” asks Judge Morrison.

Bucky struggles not to hang his head or curl his lip. Old emotions stir up but he bites his tongue. No help will come if he interrupts Steve now.

“Had he done that, I firmly believe we never would have discovered a trace of Bucky. He eluded the best intelligence agencies in the world for half a century, Your Honour. It does not stand to reason he would ever reveal himself to a camera.” Steve shakes his head. “Besides the fact his Soviet conditioning does not erase his memories. He confessed to me, and on record to Agent Ross, that he did not commit the murders. He accounted for his location in Bucharest at the time of the attack in Vienna, a fact corroborated by another dozen people. The facts together imply he is not the one who detonated the bomb or masterminded the plan.”

So his testimony continues. Judge Morrison interrupts him occasionally for clarification, and once to call a recess.

By the time Steve concludes his testimony, the hush crashes over the chambers in a wave. The ache in Bucky's lower spine attests to sitting at attention too long, and he rubs his fingers against his flank. Slowly signs of movement emerge, the stenographers checking their notes and attorneys bending to confer with one another around the table. Movement and discussion slowly undo the enchantment cast over all over them.

Steve shakes hands with several officials, thanking the legal team assigned to Bucky. “Of course. Answering a few questions will be no trouble at all,” he says.

For a brief moment, he casts that faint smile up to his best friend. A few bystanders catch the exchange. Bucky nods and clutches his shaking hand.

“You are fortunate to have such good friends,” mutters a Dutch judge from the International Criminal Court. She gives a long, thoughtful look to the retreating blond captain.

* * *

No one tells Bucky a thing about the outside world or the news affairs. He has to trust in the plan hatched in Wakanda three months ago.

He and Steve Rogers negotiated a careful course that might lead to exoneration from crimes he never committed. Bucky would face the charges levied by the International Criminal Court for his supposed actions in Vienna. Through a grueling but essential review of evidence and testimony provided by key figures, the court clearing him of charges offered the surest chance of clearing his name.

Hell of a risky gambit, but not the craziest time he or Steve ever shared. Hell, a dozen of their wartime adventures counted as crackpot schemes with a sliver of the odds of success.

Bucky continued his slow recovery under the guidance of the Wakandan princess, Shuri. He was never much more than a bit player, but strategy between his best friend and his host seemed to be something they delighted in. For days, Steve hashed out the details with T'Challa and his advising counsel in the glorious Wakandan throne room. Their bent heads resembled in miniature the United Nations, international cooperation at its finest. All to free him.  

One warm night, T'Challa and Steve presented results of their arduous planning to go public and face down a panel of international judges. They laid out the proposed conditions along with the risks, nothing left wrapped up in a fantasy. If the court went against him, Bucky might spend a very long life in prison.

“So just like the Soviet Union,” he said, an attempt at levity cutting against their mutual history. Steve didn't speak except to sigh, and T'Challa retained his counsel.

No one required him to go along with their recommendation. If he wanted to stay hidden in his sanctuary, the golden city remained open to him for life, T'Challa promised. A generous gift from a king.

“A cage is still a cage,” Bucky said. “My record sticks with me for life. I'll always be shackled by this, looking over my shoulder.”

“We cannot guarantee how this will turn out. You might be charged.”

“But I have my day in court to say it wasn't me.”

The pain in Steve's eyes cut to the core. Even now, remembering his concealed agony causes Bucky to falter mid-pushup. His shoulders ache. His heart bruises even thinking about their last days together, and nothing so great as those blue eyes tightened by fear and uncertainty.

He agreed and committed to a course to go public. He sometimes wonders whether agreeing to turn himself in counts as one of his worse decisions or better.

For an assassin, secrecy is everything. Sitting in front of the cameras day after day goes against everything engrained in Bucky’s very soul.

_Do it for Steve_. His mantra applies as he descends to the cement floor and pushes himself up, biceps bunching, shoulders flexing to elevate his planked body. Doing pushups one-armed only serves to pass the time. He rarely regrets the absence of the prosthetic, but he does now.

After the gruelling testimony over hours where they exchanged not a single word, Steve vanished into the night and Bucky returned to the cold grey arms of American justice. He has to admit they’re superior in every sense to his time in Russia or life on the run, a fugitive from every player in the Great Game. Confinement oddly comes easy to him.

Worry chases its own tail and his thoughts relentlessly thunder after his best friend. Is Steve safe or has some government agency or another overstepped its bounds to arrest him?

He lives in his featureless cell, doing endless pushups to keep his body busy for the long hours when sleep eludes him. Two hours before the transfer to the court, Everett Ross bypasses the guards and the metal doors swing back to admit him. A braver man than some; the other guards never quite enter, keeping at further than arm’s reach.

“Freshen up, Barnes. We have a busy day ahead of us,” Ross says.

Just like that, no preamble or greeting. As far as bureaucrats go, he rarely beats around the bush. Bucky might even like him.

“You give me fifteen minutes to gussy up and I’ll be ready to go. Bring me anything pretty to wear?”

Ross crosses his arms over his chest. “Let’s keep to the facts. The King of Wakanda will be giving his testimony today.”

“Fancy date night. Got it.”

“Don’t kid yourself, this won’t be an easy day. Last I heard, he harbours hard feelings towards you.”

Another six pushups and Bucky stops, taking care to roll back slowly into a crouch. Any faster and the guards spook, and they carry guns. Another reason for keeping him in the US rather than Austria or the Netherlands, the fears that mundane security would never hold him are more than founded on his supersoldier physique and the vibranium arm welded to his shoulder. They can remove the one, but never touch the other.

“I got it, commander.” He pauses, weighing memory. “Or is it agent now?”

“Agent. Look, do me a favour and take this seriously,” Ross says.

All at once the fragile candor wrapped around the soldier collapses, brushed away by a slow exhalation. The cold grey walls banish any recollection of the red soil and lush foliage that greeted him every morning when he walked free, a guest in a nation thought to be populated by little more than impoverished goat herders and undereducated weavers and farmers. _Keep to the plan. Steve’s counting on you._

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Bucky says.

Ross stares at him for too long to be exactly comfortable, the appraising slope of his descending eyebrows proof of dissatisfaction. He taps his finger against his upper arm, the slow, rhythmic cadence as familiar as the pace of curl-ups and pushups. Bucky knows the count.

“I don’t get you. Showing up after a year to declare your innocence. Hauling in Steve Rogers was never unexpected where you’re involved.”

He says nothing.

“But T’Challa, king of a third-world country, has the position and firsthand account to build his credibility. As the last person on the docket, his testimony counts. He could put you away permanently, if the court goes in his favour. I hope you remember that out there today. Try not to antagonize someone with diplomatic immunity,” the agent adds with a sigh.

Bucky nods. “I know the drill. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”

* * *

A day later, the court summons the other star witness. His very presence brings out the paparazzi and bedevils law enforcement. Journalists crawl over the streets for a chance to cover the tragic story of the young man thrust into the spotlight by the tragic death of his father. King T'Challa briefly hit the American news cycle when the assassination connected a minor African nation to the Winter Soldier.

That all changed the moment he stepped out of the shadows weeks ago to announce the presence of a shielded, technologically advanced nation in the heartland of a continent long since written off as a backwater. Now no one can get enough of T'Challa and speculating on his response to Bucky Barnes, accused of crimes against humanity -- and very personally against him.

Extra security blocked off vehicle access by a buffer of three streets. Armed police and SWAT teams have their places, the visible men and women in uniform just the tip of an iceberg compared to the unseen counterparts.

A full hour after the proceedings are set to begin, Bucky Barnes enters the hushed room he practically spends every waking hour in. Extra guards flank the doors, another stationed close to his table,

_All for him._ Bucky muses over the extra layers of protection brought about when his entourage escorts him through an underground passage into the courtroom, bypassing the sniffer dogs and metal detectors common to Manhattan ever since attacks on New York left the realm of bad movies and became real.

The audience settles with perfunctory efficiency. While the media circus outside spills over the plaza, the presiding judge -- Morrison -- brooks no interruptions to the dignity and bearing of his courtroom. All endures, serene and timeless, as he swears in T'Challa and recounts the business of the court with his usual efficiency.

Through it all, the king maintains that timeless patience. He fits in well and T'Challa commands a powerful response when he finally takes the stand. Flowing words hook a listener and haul them into the measured current, the mark of an exceptional orator.

Bucky is no different from the attorneys or judges. He leans in to listen.

"When my father spoke on the floor of the United Nations, he extended Wakanda's hand in peace. He died believing we must unite for a common good,” T'Challa says.

The Dora Milaje who accompany their king turn their attention fully to him. To a one, the women wear the same maroon or black suits tailored within an inch of their life. Their formidable physiques are barely concealed, and they take in the proceedings like lionesses assessing the hunt.

Bucky smiles. Likely no one save the head of security understands their significance. Okoye sits flanked by three other Dora Milaje. Lindiwe acts as the senior lawyer, though she looks no older than thirty.

Any one of them would give the whole of the room a run for their money, save Cap himself. The thought cools his nerves, a little.

_Any time they want to get around to appointing blame elsewhere, they're free to get on with doing that_. Maybe uncharitable to hope to rush, but Bucky is tired. Six weeks under scrutiny from trial teams exhausts him.

T'Challa has none of the easygoing charm of Steve Rogers. His formal inflections settle into the void, each thought deliberately measured. So young, and yet his presence infuses his sparse movements with all the deep, considered care of a Shakespearean actor upon the Globe's boards.

"He passed in my arms as he called for a better world. Wakanda shares the sorrow of all nations for the terrorist attack in Vienna. An attack which James Barnes stands accused of committing." He meets the soldier's eyes directly in a wordless acknowledgment of Bucky's presence.

“I know the heavy burden of loss experienced by many on that terrible day.”

The judges shift in their seats, one surreptitiously glancing Bucky's way. He has long since learned to school his face into a smooth mask, something halfway between contrite and observant.

Only now is it safe for him to slant his attention briefly towards Steve, seated behind the Wakandan legal team in the benches provided for the small audience.

T'Challa continues to speak, unflinching. “The best of my country's intelligence identified the unknown man as the Winter Soldier. Wakandan technicians also identified the image and footage were prerecorded and heavily modified.”

“Your Honour, exhibits fourteen through twenty-seven, as submitted to the court,” says Lindiwe from the table by the Dora Milaje. The gold band at her neck glints when she stands.

Judge Morrison nods to her announcement. His assistants review the materials provided to them.

Lindiwe flicks her wrist and projected images appear from the kimoyo beads around her wrist. Thin blue lines form into a static image of Bucky in his dark hoodie and jeans, the photographic still broadcast around Europe and throughout most of the world. A collective gasp rushes through courtroom.

Steve bites his cheek to avoid smiling. He has not forgotten the impression Wakandan technology makes on the unsuspecting. The lifelike three-dimensional projection of his best friend still startles him.

“As you can see,” T'Challa gestures at Bucky. “He was filmed elsewhere. But when we add the overlays for post-production, notice the inconsistencies in the shadows and the grainy movements smoothed out around his arm. The work is very good. Professional, certainly.”

“But still falsified,” Lindiwe says.

When Captain America wears a crisp black suit and a flag on the lapel, no amount of tailoring conceals his identity. It damn near hurts to have him so near and so very far, a golden island of calm in the midst of T'Challa presentation. Steve raises his hand just slightly and curls his index finger to his thumb.

_A-OK._ His hand remains poised a second longer than he feels comfortable and drops back into his lap. As if anyone would be focused on him while T'Challa has the stage.

“We do not hold that James Barnes detonated the explosives in a van,” he says without preamble. A dozen riveted gazes follow him as he gestures. “In light of the false images, consider that Helmut Zemo confessed to targeting the United Nations for the purpose of inciting the public against the Sokovia Accords and driving a wedge in the Avengers.”

“Do you say then Mr. Barnes was not involved, if not responsible?” Morrison is sharp on the point.

Steve clenched his hands around his knees, seated stiff and upright. The question hangs in the air while T'Challa shakes his head near imperceptibly at the trio of Wakandan attorneys. Unspoken instruction halts the Dora Milaje who, though attentive, show little inclination to interrupt the proceedings with their own motion.

“I do not argue his involvement,” the king says, “as a decoy.”

Someone inhales too loudly to be overlooked. Steve marks the justice, the South Korean, a brief flare of a smile threatening to tease the corners of his mouth upwards.

“Not as a pawn, as you would say, but as bait to misdirect law enforcement and achieve the stated aim to cause dissention. Mr. Barnes’ profile is so high that of course law enforcement would respond with maximum force to any sighting in the vicinity. Anyone aware of his identity likewise knew Captain Rogers would be honour bound to respond, considering their long relationship. The timely appearance in Vienna was simply too convenient.”

Gesturing at Bucky, T'Challa drops his hand back into his lap. “The basis of evidence rests on false images and doctored video. Any number of agents could produce footage likely to pass muster. Broadcasting damaging information concealed another actor in the matter, again Helmut Zemo by confession and examination. Did he persuade or force Mr. Barnes to cooperate with him, a man known to be in hiding and independent, or possibly rogue, after the fall of HYDRA? I cannot see how that could be achieved, Your Honour.”

The very name of the organization rocks Steve back in his seat and causes a murmuring through the court. Okoye tight smile borders on a smirk, and she lays her palm flat atop the table. Surprised comments settle altogether too fast, but she awaits the slightest whiff of danger to move to defend her king.

Judge Morrison pinches the bridge of his nose. “Your Highness, plainly.”

“This man did not murder my father. Planted material clearly hoped I or another party would kill him. The US government and this court have the true criminal in their custody, and I pray by my ancestors he will never experience freedom,” T'Challa says. “The kingdom of Wakanda formally declares for the innocence of Bucky Barnes, and let that be on record.”

Never mind they planned out the fine details and broad sweeps together half a world away. The ringing conviction rolling thunderous and clear through the chamber swallows Steve and Bucky. T'Challa folds his hands and takes no further opportunity to speak.

Bravery in the silence brings up his best friend's chin. Pale eyes, pupils shrunk to mere pinpoints with adrenaline, meet Steve's and for the first time in weeks, Bucky grins. Not nearly the full breadth his smile normally covers, but even this much serves.

“Thank you, King T'Challa. This court will have a thirty minute recess before we reconvene,” says the judge.

The others in the parliament of ravens manage to bide their tongues. Nothing must be declared to the hungry crowds that could obstruct the course of justice. Discreetly brushing his brow with his sleeve, Steve leans back against his seat and waits for the others to pass.

* * *

Time has a strange way of refusing to pass while waiting on a key decision or major event. Long ago Steve learned how the creep of the minute hand became glacial when the world collectively held its breath.

He strips out of his suit jacket in the bathroom while Natasha stands outside, her back respectfully to the doorway to offer him a modicum of privacy.

 “What are you planning to do if he gets off the hook?” she asks.

Steve ease the dark sleeve over his arm, transferring the garment onto a hanger. “Is it wrong to say a celebration isn't in order?”

“That's what normal people tend to do when they win something. Go out for a fancy steak dinner.”

She runs her fingers through her loose, fiery curls and resolutely stares at the wall. Her loose posture belies a constant awareness, the insistence she accompany him out of the court and all the way back to the anonymous hotel where a reservation under Simon Wood hides nothing about his identity.

“Seems a bit odd given the situation,” he says.

“Wouldn't you be glad not to be guilty of crimes against humanity?”

“Remind me to use Clint as a party planner.”

He winces, his elbow knocking against the wall. Natasha turns briefly, checking the collision. Rubbing his arm, he starts unbuttoning his collar while she resumes sentry duty against.

 “Cold, Rogers.”

He changes into his jeans and t-shirt, something simple and plain, but well cared for. Among the businessmen favouring the hotel, he stands out as a mere mortal instead of a hedge fund manager, but slipping into clean cotton is like returning to himself.

“It's up to him at the end of the day.”

 “Playing it by ear, then?”

“Something like that. Maybe we can hit up this great deli on the Lower East Side.”

“His first free meal in decades and you're thinking of Katz's?”

Arched brows sneaking higher, Natasha crosses her arms over her chest.

Steve chuckles. “You never lived if you haven't had their pastrami on rye. Pickles may be optional, but the bread is this thick and the meat is worth a letter home to Aunt Matilda.”

“One, I don't have an Aunt Matilda,” Nat says. “Second, I fail to see how any pastrami sandwich could possibly be so good to beguile the great Captain America.”

“Don't knock it until you try it. Come out with us. It'll be good for you and Buck.”

Her smirk softens and she shakes her head, a cloud of dark hair licking against her neck. “No can do. You know the minute he gets free, someone will be gunning for him.”

Nothing about her declaration rings false to Steve, but he drops his leather coat back onto the pristinely made bed. Not a chance he intends to sleep here. If sleep can't be found, he has other options, running around Central Park or walking every street in the Bronx.

Hand brushing above his elbow, Natasha falls in beside him. “I'm sorry. But I have to be a realist, as much as I hate it.”

“You're doing your job. I appreciate that.”

“Makes me a barrel of fun at parties.” She laughs, but the sound barely manages to break a hollow echo.

“For a long time, Bucky lacked the freedom to make his own choices. The media branded him a mass murderer after Vienna. Intelligence agencies consider him a Cold War horror, the nuclear option of the Politburo. Hell, Nat, he considers himself a brainwashed weapon half the time. I read his files, the one you provided me from Kiev and the SHIELD reports from Sharon. Between Agent Ross and T'Challa, I've gained a better idea of how little independence he had until the last two years. A verdict proving his innocence won't change everything, but it sure raises the bar by a couple thousand feet.”

“I hope everyone has the same positivity and hope as you, Rogers. I'll still keep my pistols loaded if you don't mind.”

“I don't. Wish it weren't necessary, but I won't begrudge you protecting us in the way you know best.”

Natasha smiles, though her cold eyes hold diamond hardness behind the refined porcelain mask of her face. “Between the two of us, Bucky might just stand a chance.”

“Here's hoping. No one has a reset button. If the justices agree with the facts and testimony, though, Bucky gets to start out fresh. Having a place in New York and walking the streets freely doesn't sound so bad, does it?” Steve raises his eyebrows, turning to ask her directly.

“For spooks like us, living in the open sounds terrifying. Not to say it shouldn't be done.”

“I'll ask T'Challa for some kind of cloaking mechanism, then?”

“That's a start. And get Sam to dispatch one of his little birds to monitor him in case things get hot.” She wrinkles her nose. “Bucky may dislike it as much as I do, but he'll appreciate that Big Brother is one of his own if matters get hot.”

Slinging his coat over his shoulder, Steve breathes in the familiar leather scent. “You're a good friend, Ms. Romanova. I hope you know that. Feel like a walk?”   

They both head for the door, leaving barely a mark of their presence on the hotel room for curious housekeeping staff to find.

* * *

The crush of reporters on the political and judicial beat build, bit by bit, to a crushing swell around the building. Grumbling police and court security call in backup to deal with the heaving masses. The conclusion of the first modern crimes against humanity trial on American soil draws nigh, and the crowds refuse to be deterred even by a vicious Nor’easter.

Rain lashes the windows far above the proper courtroom. News vans cluster as close as they can get, satellite dishes pointed to a leaden, miserable sky the shade of old iron. Umbrellas blossoming like black fungi flip inside out, offering minimal shelter to the curious bystanders, protesters, and bored youths awaiting a verdict. Driving showers strike at angles, soon soaking through coats and clothes with indiscriminate ease.

Steve hurries his way in through the corridor held open by armed guards. A few offer him nods, their wary gazes slipping back towards the door.

“You had runners?” he asks.

“Three folks with photocopied credentials trying to push their way through before seven.” The guard frowns, his worn face bruised by a lack of sleep.

Steve nods, straightening up his tie for the fourth time since his arrival on site. “I sure appreciate your presence here, sir. Good to know the wheels of justice turn smoothly.”

“Plenty glad you're here, Captain. Sir.”

“Captain Rogers is fine.”

“Well, if things go bad, I know who to look for.”

“I pray they don't,” Steve says, earnest to the very tips of his polished boots, the one concession he refused to make for the formal attire required by the occasion. “But if they do, I have your back.”

The guard nods, refusing to smile. A dimple breaks at the corner of his mouth.

Steve turns and heads into the courtroom.

Philippe Harrison presides over his domain with all the somber majesty of an ancient king. His black robes flow past his thin frame, the sapphire bands trimming a white collar. Twin blue flags of the International Criminal Court flank the block of his beech desk, replacing the Stars and Stripes.

In some way, that lack of Old Glory vaguely satisfies Steve, for all he wears the American flag pin on his lapel. A chance of worldwide freedom matches the severity of the charges levied against Bucky.

Judge Harrison nods and a bailiff swings open the door admitting the accused, announced in clear, ringing tones.

A fresh shower and barbering do wonders to remind the audience of Bucky's rude good health. His loose chestnut hair nearly shines under the light, falling in a slight wave to his broad shoulders. For the event, his left sleeve has not been pinned up, betraying the prosthetic arm concealed beneath. The 3D printed fingers curl slightly, cupped against his side, a hint of grace where the vibranium-plated alternative lies in the Wakandan consulate.

His suit appropriately cuts close to his body, though the slightly foreign tailored lines bespeak its source. Narrow lapels frame the white shirt whose standing collar and faint, silvered embroidery warrants a second, sharper look from Steve.

_A white wolf._

He locks his jaw to avoid saying anything. A row away, Okoye raises her bald head by millimeters and her shoulders square. _She's laughing_. The revelation goes through him like her spear point, and he muses at the subtle show of support from Wakanda likely known only to a very few.

Once he takes his seat, Bucky forms the last piece in their judicial jigsaw puzzle. The morning's rhythm follows all those traditional benchmarks he and the rest of the courtroom come to expect. Judge Harrison would have it no other way. They will respect precedent, be it swearing in or assembling minutes. Familiarity with order breeds calm rather than contempt.

Sergeant Barnes of the US Army once drew strength from proximity to Steve, drinking in the certainty of purpose they shared. In the brief interval where they stood together again, he finds the calm presence of his best friend an anchor against a certain storm. No matter how today pans out, a storm is coming.

Not just the rain sheeting off the glass outside, drowning out the crowds and sending trash floating down the gutter.

Judges flanking the bench settle into their seats. The pitiless, dispassionate eye of the video cameras mounted at corners of the chamber and directly in Bucky's direction capture his every motion.

When all has convened, Judge Harrison stares the weight of his duty square in the eye. He is far from a short man, barely subdued by the advent of senior years. At sixty-three, he looks fit enough to run the Boston Marathon or kayak in Lake Geneva.

"I will now go through the charges," he says. Not a corner of the room is spared his even baritone, a shockingly deep voice emerging from the iron-haired man.

The sparse audience sit up straight in their chairs. A row of black-clad judges at attention lend their brutal authority. Bucky turns his head to the bench.

They cannot possibly hear his heart hammering in the bone cage around it. Remembering to breathe, even in shallow draws, takes more of his conscious control than he cares to admit. Once he fell into the sniper’s zone by pushing outward cares at bay in a similar fashion. Today he needs to survive.

Steve is stone-faced and quiet, whatever prayers between him and his maker.

If he still believes. For all Bucky knows, the blond captain might be counting seconds for an exit or reviewing his mental calendar.

"Count one: murder. Count two: attempted murder. Count three: grievous bodily harm. Count four: destruction of property. Count five: terror. Count six: unlawful attacks on civilians. Count seven: taking of hostages."

Every one is damning, a condemnation against the integrity of the individual and the state. The charges sing a bleak song, proof in their awful way that Bucky is no more and no less than what HYDRA transformed him into: a monster.

The judge adjusts his headset slightly, and he steeples his fingers over the paper laid down before him.

Bucky tries not to wince. Beaded sweat gathers along his hairline.

"Based upon the factual and legal findings set out in great detail in the written judgment,” Harrison begins, and draws a breath.

He knows the value of timing all too well. If the accused clenches his teeth tighter, enamel might start cracking.

“The chamber finds James Barnes not guilty on all counts."

With that stone cast, deafening silence ripples away from them.

He sits in his chair unable to compose a thought or a word. Bucky swallows the stunning verdict like a man smacked across the back of the head. After weeks swimming with the current and doing everything Ross demanded of him, he lacks the protocol or life preserver to navigate this change in circumstance. His prosthetic hand trembles in his lap. Eyes that swivel to him gauge him like the ancient statues of Ramesses II, carved of sandstone and eternal judgment.

T'Challa utters some order and the youngest of the Dora Milaje nods, prepared to spring into action the moment the gates open.

Everything flies by on the formalities and protocols established by the court, allowing for closure on the case. The records will show he is not responsible for crimes against humanity, but none of that matters so much as two brutal facts.

_Steve_. He briefly catches the blond's eye. The smile, however small, conveys all he needs to know.

Only then can he breathe, but Bucky wants out into the fresh air. The rigmarole of checking him out, transferring him back into his own recognizance, and half a million other minute details pinning him down. Barriers like broken glass strewn in front of a barefooted man beckon him to bolt out the door into the fresh air.

“Looks like Justice smiled on you,” Ross says, floating somewhere off his elbow and halfway to San Francisco. “Let's get you processed and out, shall we?”

“You know, I've never been to San Francisco,” he says.

“First time for everything.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

When the guards serving as his escorted guide him away, Bucky's last glimpse of Steve is painted in a lonely streak of navy blue among the departing audience.

His heart aches for reasons he can hardly process. Is this happiness?

 


	2. The Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [The Moon](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/moon/)

Freedom tastes like stale air and petrichor seeping through the grates. Bucky's shoulder aches from the welcome, familiar weight of the prosthetic denied to him for the past six weeks. His hands shake when the two guards escorts him through a forgettable corridor, meandering halfway to Queens under the harbour.

“Agent Ross figured you wanted to avoid the commotion outside the front doors,” says a man in a neat black suit. His name badge reads _Lawrence_. Unease tightens his shoulders and back beyond the military bearing he broadcasts.

Bucky nods, his hair falling in a dark veil around his cheekbones. The walls press in on him. Exposed pipes and buzzing fluorescent lights skate the length of the low ceiling. “This an old bomb shelter or something?”

“Feels like it, doesn't it?” Lawrence says. His companion, a near duplicate with a tight and high haircut and the same martial step, hasn't said a word in fifteen minutes.

“VIPs get escorted in and out this way?”

“And war criminals. Can't let ‘em escape the long hand of justice.”

Bucky never quite breaks step. He turns those frozen blue eyes on the man beside him, a mild flick measuring and dismissing Lawrence in a heartbeat. The man stumbles. “Is that what you think I did? Escaped justice?”

“No.” Lawrence focuses straight ahead on the doors. Another set of guards there stand at attention, the last barrier to freedom.

Now or never. The smart thing would to be keeping it together, chin up and mouth shut, and march out into the world. Greet the fresh blue sky and be done with this part of his past.

Bucky Barnes has never been anything less than impulsive. He wheels around and the buzzing light glints off the gold inlay on his wrist, the slight hum of energy percolating through the vibranium arm. “Don't lie to me, Lawrence. I don't need to have a psychology degree to read your face.”

Lawrence's jaw bulges as he bares down, clenching his teeth. His partner drops a hand on his arm, squeezing above the elbow. The guard shakes him off.

“It's not up to me whether the judge ruled wrong.”

“But you think he did.” Bucky doesn't smile. His teeth ache and his body feels stretched thin, prepared to bolt across an open mined field at enemy positions. “What was it that ticks you off so much, son? Captain Rogers or King T’Challa?”

“Don't call me son.”

“Don't call me a war criminal.”

He flexes his fingers into a fist and loosens them. No good can possibly come plowing his way out of the tunnel, leaving a trail of broken bodies in his wake. He's not that man anymore and, no matter how tempting the idea, Steve would be disappointed in the gratuitous use of violence.

The second man, name tag reading _Bridges_ , pulls Lawrence back. His boots skid across the cement floor. “Let's shut it down. Save it for the bar.”

“Listen to your friend,” Bucky says. “He has a lick more sense than either of us.”

Lawrence's hesitation melts away when the distance separating him from the soldier grows. His expression crumples into a sneer. “I'm no fool. You murdered men and women. Those stains won't ever leave.”

“Yes, I did.” Bucky lifts his head, for once showing his face. “Not something I am proud of, not something I ever asked absolution for.”

“But you did,” the guard presses in, trying to shake off his friend's hand. “Men like you shouldn't go free. Men like you pervert everything this country stands for, everything me and my dad and his dad fought for.”

“Freedom? Liberty? The right to decide your own future?” Those words sting him, but he says them quietly. “I recall fighting for the same.”

“Until you blew up the UN.”

“Until Steve Rogers freed me from Soviet programming.”

Bridges loses his grip and swings around to put himself straight between Lawrence and Bucky. He's shorter by six inches and too quiet, prepared to defuse an impossible fight. “Come on, man. Don't do this.”

“Who else will?” Lawrence's lip curls back in an ugly snarl.

The other pair, alerted by the low, thunderous timbre of the voices if not the exact words, approach slowly. Their hands reach for their sidearms, not yet drawing.     

The commotion looks for a source of heat and fire. Bucky refuses to give them the blazing torch to begin a witch hunt, shaking his head and turning away. Scuffing behind him builds over a creak of leather boots, the low, angry mutters foretelling violence. He needs no gypsy fortune-teller reading his fortune to let him know that.

“Come on, Sergeant. Let's get you out to a car.” Another of the exit guards hurries him along, falling in step behind him. The door is only a few feet away, almost in arm's reach.

Lawrence shouts, a raw red wound. “Remember this, Barnes. There's someone out there waiting to deliver justice. Maybe not me. Maybe not here. But there will be!”

“Man, shut up,” Bridges’ retort echoes down the hall.

The guard nudges Bucky along, though he hardly needs to. “Let's go.”

The moment the door swings open, the grey, thick air and pouring rain greet the soldier. Wind drives the thick cumulus clouds in parallel bands of charcoal grey smudged along the horizon, and he cranes his head back to measure the volume of the storm. Spring charges in like a lion, trampling the few leaves poking out from the dormant trees. A loading ramp cuts up to the road, slick asphalt submerged under small, fast-running tributaries of storm water.

Bucky sighs quietly. The beauty of the sight strikes him the core, even if the heavy smell of rain thickens on every breath. He fights to pull enough oxygen into his lungs, the sisyphean stone lodged in his throat choking him. When his companion utters a low, concerned noise, he waves the man off.

Free for the first time in two months. Free on American soil for the first time in seventy years.

He does what any man in his boots would do. He bolts up the ramp at a breathless speed, accelerating near as fast as a sports car. The shocked cry behind him dissipates into the droplets pelting the loading dock.

The rain stings where each thin needle strikes his bare skin. Mild pain blooms like an old friend in sensitive spots on his cheek and throat. Bucky welcomes the kiss of the storm, veering away into the labyrinthine tangle of New York streets.

* * *

The black sedan idles by the curb, slick and modern lines portraying wealth and a strange anonymity that Steve finds amusing at some level. _Too gauche to broadcast money, not acceptable to go without notice_.

He checks the doors for the sixth time in ten minutes, measuring the degree of chaos from the employees’ entrance. Ever since the ICC laid down its verdict, the journalists reacted swiftly. They set their course to find the newly freed Bucky Barnes for the money shot, besieging every way into the building. Cameras form banks under plastic wrappers, sheltered from the rain.

Rubbing the condensation on the glass gives him a clearer view once again. “Could you turn on the defogger?”

“We call it air conditioning now.”

Natasha sits in the driver's seat, a smirk creasing her mouth. She presses three buttons in sequence, the car responding by kicking up the fans in a nearly soundless hum. Air billows through discreet vents and holds the damp fog at bay.

“Thank you.” He chooses to overlook the mild needling. Whenever concern weighs too heavily on him, he can count on the statuesque redhead to prick his pride for a response.

“You ever hear this old saying my grandmother used to say about a watched pot?”

“Never boils,” he says. “Statistical fallacy. Heat applied to the pot would--”

“You're missing the point.”

“Probably. Come on, Buck…”

Brushing his hand over his wheat blond hair, he nods and resumes his sentinel duty. Men and women rush out under black umbrellas, a few wielding daring, patterned nylon shields from the rain. The cruel wind flips one inside out to the dismay of the alarmed businessman, his suit speckled by wet patches.

She leans back in her seat, hand poised to her cheek, relentlessly casual. Gloved fingers tap the stitched leather wheel. Half a dozen modifications feed constant streams of biometric, traffic, and law enforcement data through the encrypted channel to the car's central computer. Data blurs across the touchscreen display.

Showers pound the windshield. The background noise of the street evaporates, and he's back in the Apennines, peering down onto seemingly timeless villages as he awaits a signal. A smoke plume above the church steeple, soldiers running back into the field. He and Bucky relied on those bold alerts to announce their presence across miles of alpine valleys.

The clock turns over, another fourteen minutes past their rendezvous time. Late, not a good sign. His heartbeat spikes. Anticipation courses through his veins and he pulls in a deep breath. _Any time now, Buck, any time..._

The appearance of Bucky Barnes is cause for great interest and thickening crowds. He sits up, hand on the door handle, when the journalists peel off from the barricades and press forward to a gauntlet opening up along the police lines. Guards and police press together to offer someone a point of exit.

“Keep the car running, Nat. Think I got a visual,” he says, cranking open the door.

She shoots him a pointed look and shakes her head, curling auburn hair licking the underside of her chin. “Rogers, stay.”

“The faster I get to him the better.”

She practically cuts him off. “That's not Barnes.”

The rain flattens his hair and dampens his shoulder, but he rotates back to look at her. She cups her hand over her ear, the wireless piece pressed into the shell picking up a stream of data. Her fingertips dance along the tablet mounted to the dashboard, fine-tuning the voice channels.

“Where is he?”

He drops back onto the seat and the first break in the massed crowd reveals a judge wrapped in a trenchcoat, blue sash swaddling his throat. The heavy police presence still provides an escort through the crowd, a mad dash for a vehicle.

“He fled.” She speaks slowly, distracted by the chattering voices. “Dammit, Barnes, that's not the way to spend your first hours free.”

“You don't know what he's been through,” Steve says. He reaches over to unlatch her seatbelt, and the belt snaps back into place with brutal efficiency. She takes the hint and slithers across the central console to the backseat, somehow finding room to pour herself into one of the plush seats without kicking him.

The arch of her eyebrows almost teases, but the rest of her expression falls into the serious lines of a Soviet monument to the Great Patriotic War, less a seductress intent on making him go red.

He blushes anyways, the tips of his ears flaming. Hoisting himself into the driver's seat takes a whole lot more work and he executes the move with only a fraction of her supple grace.

“Give me heads up,” she says. “Red square on the screen. Tap it twice, and then swipe your thumb right.”

“Sounds like a dating app.”

He says too much since her eyebrows lift a full centimeter, questions bubbling to the surface. But she keeps her mouth shut, leaning forward to see the strings of telephone numbers and a grid map confined to the far left of the screen.

He follows her instructions to her satisfaction. Nat doesn't say anything further, swaying as the sedan rolls into motion.

The car responds faster and sweeter than anything from his time, and he gives credit to the Japanese engineering backing up the understated power at his fingertips. Steve negotiates his way around the pedestrians shooting across the street at a run, paying more heed to the roads than the instructions.

“Left,” she says.

He hangs a tight turn, sweeping around the cluster of parks and parking structures fringing the outer edges of the building.

“Do you have a bead on where he went?”

“Two unconfirmed reports, opposite directions. One had him cutting parallel to 1st Avenue,” she murmurs, gaze on the staccato black skyline of skyscrapers and midrises.

“Central Park or the Queensborough Bridge,” he states automatically.

“On foot, the Queensborough doesn't make a whole lot of sense.” Natasha's brows lower and she says, “Hey computer, show me the traffic.”

The map flashes alight, overlaid by shades of maroon and scarlet across the main thoroughfares. Steve checks and grimaces. “I hate to tell you but we're not making that flight to Paris.”

“You can make it up to me later.”

A bus pulls out ahead of them and he shoots the gap behind a taxi, aggressively weaving his way through typically choked New York traffic. “Nix heading into Queens. How far to the nearest station?”

“A thirty minute hike to the 2nd Avenue station.”

“So ten.”

She grimaces, and takes advantage of a pause in the row of cars to wrap herself around the front passenger bucket seat. The black leather boots and beige trench pour past his peripheral vision, a view most men would skill to experience. Her thigh grazes his shoulder, her sole planted against the top of his knee until she manages to drop into place.

Steve barely notices the proximity and shakes his head, clicking on the turn signal before he cuts around another double-parked vehicle. “Buckle up.”

“You got it.” The snap of metal engaging satisfies that uneasy vibration in Steve's skull. Natasha taps the screen and starts to shift the perspective of the map around, zeroing in on a string of red lines spanning the East River. “The other chatter has him moving south past the Chrysler Building.”

“The Chrysler Building?”

“You heard me right. Tracking south and no confirmation of turning west.”

“Plenty of streets to hide down. Good cover.” Steve punches the car south and weaves around the side streets through neighbourhoods thick with brick high rises older than most European nations. The wipers throw water viciously aside from the glass.

She glances over at him. “How do you plan on hunting for a needle in a haystack?”

“Same as I always do, Nat. Look for the smoke signal.”

“Hate to break it to you, Rogers, but he went to ground. And you know how long it took us last time…”

He does not need a reminder of a fruitless year searching in every corner. Relying on the best intel backed up by outposts of SHIELD and the Five Eyes gained him little better than a few sightings and cold trails. “Failure isn't an option, Natasha. Not for him.”

“Never said it was. I just point out the first six hours are critical in missing person cases.” She rotates around to scour the rooftops again while Steve plunges around slow-moving traffic, cutting up onto the sidewalk and punching the accelerator.

“Thought that was twenty-four.”

“We're dealing with the Winter Soldier.”

He stiffens in spite of himself and nearly sideswipes a newspaper box. The door squeaks. Natasha utters a sound indistinct enough not to be terror, and definitely not pleasure.

The wheels grip the wet pavement. Steve's eyes stay ahead through the water slewing diagonally over the windshield.

“No worries, it was the _Bugle_. I never really liked the _Bugle_.”

Levity gets about as far as a deflating balloon and sinks into a worried frown. A metropolis of nine million people makes a great place to hide, as much as he doesn't want to admit to himself Bucky would do that. In his shoes, what would _he_ do to escape the limelight and the reproachful glares, the media dogging his every step?

Not often he wishes for the ice, but Steve feels the siren call of the cold and privacy now and then. His hand clenches around the steering wheel.

“You got a plan?”

“I always have a plan,” he says.

Natasha smiles briefly, and pulls the black earpiece free. “You care to share. Since we're obviously not headed to Brooklyn.”

“You discounted that already?”

“Wouldn't you?”

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” Natasha alters the terrain map with a few swipes of her fingers. “He taught me to stay aware of my surroundings and seek a place where I would not stand out. Basic tradecraft, anyone trained by the Red Room knows the value in blending in. Everyone hunting for him knows he comes from Brooklyn, so he would avoid it. Lay low for a bit, he'll go somewhere he knows and hide out for a bit if he intends to plot his next move. Could be phoning you, could be taking a boat back to HQ.”

The idea of Bucky piloting a motorboat upstream to the upstate Avengers headquarters almost makes Steve laugh. A mirthless bark escapes him. “We could just be dealing with a guy really hungry for a Coney dog.”

“When he hasn't checked in?” She rolls down the window. “This weather is awful. I can ask T’Challa and Shuri about tracking--”

“No.” Steve flattens the accelerator to make it through a red light. “This is us or no one. He can go if he wants to go. We don't have any hold on him, no more than we do on Wanda or Sam. I don't like it, but he earned his freedom in front of a tribunal and the whole world.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Put up a smoke signal to call him out,” the blond soldier says, sounding all of his century of life instead of the twenty-nine or thirty most mistake him for. “For that, I'm going to need a high point.”

She gestures at the puddles and water-smeared storefronts. “Here? You better be packing a lighthouse in your pocket, Rogers, if you expect him to see more than ten feet ahead of you.”

The brakes squeal in a wail. Momentum throws Natasha forward and she braces, hands slamming into the dashboard. Steve's outstretched arm prevents her from crashing forward.

She swears in Russian.

“If it weren't unprofessional, I could kiss you right now,” he says.

“I'll thank you for the backhanded compliment once the crack in my rib heals,” she snarls.

Steve's frown is apologetic and almost sheepish, but the mask torn away a moment reveals a kind of focus she rarely sees off a battlefield. He has a plan, that much is clear. “Should I even ask?”

He doesn't take his eyes from the road. “Get me the fastest route to Brighton Beach, please?”  

“Whatever you say, Cap.” Her side twinges when she taps in the address. “Is there a reason you want Little Odessa? I take it you're not feeling a sudden craving for blinis and black tea in a samovar.”

“Smoke signal he can't ignore, Nat.”

 


	3. Strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first flashback featuring a non-serum Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes in all their youthful glory.
> 
> Major arcana: [Strength](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/strength/)

_1937._

“Come back inside already, Stevie,” Bucky calls from the kitchen. He twists the lid off a jar of peanut butter.

Not much left but a thin veneer of oil along the bottom. He dips the knife deep and runs it along the sides, joining the already scraped off layers. Oughta be enough for two sandwiches.

“It's beautiful out here. Buck, come and smell the air. Just like spring.”

“Only you would think that fumes and trash smell good.”

Bucky shakes his head and runs a thin shellac over the heel of the bread. A few good strokes spread out the peanut butter so thin he can't distinguish between the coarse brown loaf and the liquid atop. Sliced in two, the small squares languish on the chipped plate.

The door hangs open and the thin silhouette of the blond teen fills out less than a third of the space. His hand presses to his breastbone, knocking at his sternum. Every blow shakes his thin shoulders. The gurgling breath he pulls drags on the sputum trapped deep in his lungs.

Bucky hates that sound more than anything else on Earth. “Come on, close the door. Can't you see I'm making lunch?”

The hungry look turned on the street below far exceeds anything Steve gives a few chopped, woody carrots and half a sandwich laid out on the table. He stares at the bicycles rolling past on the sidewalk and the kids splashing in the puddles when they go by, trying to douse some poor rider hastening to find somewhere dry for the afternoon.

He laughs until the wheezing starts and cuts off any sound except wet, wracking coughs.

A clink of the knife against the jar briefly drowns out the failed attempts of his lungs to expectorate the gunk choking him. Slowly he steps backwards, holding onto the crooked door frame for support. “All right, I won't let all the warm air in.”

“I appreciate that. I work hard to keep this place drafty,” the taller teen says.

Steve staggers on stiff legs for the table, dropping into the hoop-backed side chair. Spindles bite into his spine as he sags against it for support. His shoulders and thin chest still heave to dampened coughs he makes another effort to suppress. Bucky pretends not to notice when he reaches for the worn napkin, spreading it over his lap.

“This looks real good,” Steve says.

“Thank you. You better eat all those carrots. Mary over at the market says they came in fresh from North Carolina, real sweet.” Bucky pulls the glass milk jug from the icebox and wipes the sides down with a cloth. Not much beyond an inch of liquid remains. He pours out most into a short glass and tops off the remaining third from the water pitcher while the blond tidies up the tabletop of crumbs and straightens the thin vase.

The glass of milk lands with a thunk in front of Steve. His own plate settles directly to the right, taking up his place at the head of the table. Not until he similarly protects his trousers with a napkin and scoots in does Steve start to eat.

“You don't have to wait on me.”

They have this argument practically at every meal. Might as well be their grace. Steve smiles, as he always will, the lopsided curve denting his hollow cheek. A mop of too long bangs skates over and hangs in a fringe in front of his downcast eyes.

“That would be rude, Buck. Plus, I don't mind.”

Bucky picks up his sandwich and blows out a sigh. They may as well be actors on a radio play at this point. His sigh gives Steve permission to tuck in, spearing a chunk of pale orange carrot on his fork.

“I wish the weather was better. Shows what old Dick Hendrickson knows.”

“Aw, don't grumble. We can still have a good time.”

“Yeah? Tell that to the rainclouds. I had plans.” Bucky chews his sandwich slowly, one bite for every three the teenager takes. His big hands eclipse the bread, long fingers tamping down a square that fits too well into his palm.

“I don't mind the rain,” Steve says.

“You might not. I sure do when my nice new socks get wet.”

 _You might not mind the rain, but I hear you suffering at night_. The brunet keeps chewing, barely tasting the stale bread and the greasy residue that smacks more of castor oil medicine than anything peanutty. Fishing up a carrot, he pops the thin sliver into his mouth and bites down with a satisfying crunch.

“Becky did a nice job darning the holes,” Steve adds. “And with the flowers.”

“I'll let her know tonight.”

He clears his empty plate of the remaining slices of carrots. The blond still works on his sandwich, slow and methodical about eating. No longer cramming pieces in his mouth like he fears someone might snatch the plate away, it's an improvement. Bucky sighs faintly.

Steve catches the sound, looking up. His expression crumples around the edges, and he pushes the plate towards the middle of the table. “I'm feeling pretty full. You help yourself.”

“That's yours, Stevie.”

“No, it's…” A cough bubbles up past the blond’s constricted throat. He blindly fumbles around in his lap for the napkin, bringing the crumpled linen to his mouth in time. Colour flees from his pale face.

Wood hits the floor, the chair tipped over. A sweep of Bucky's foot kicks it away, and he drops his hand to rub between the sharply drawn peaks of Steve's shoulder blades. He massages in slow, steady circles. “Come on, let it out.”

Steve's eyes stream, pools of liquid aquamarine under tears. He finally draws enough air in to release as a barking cough, each pang shaking him to the hips. The firmness of Bucky's touch tilts him forward, his ribcage knocking the beveled table edge. Another wheezy gasp breaks past his composure, wracking his trembling body.

“That's it, easy,” murmurs the older teen.

He feels the pressure building in his lungs, sucking against a wet, flabby seal. Pain sears the few open tubes somewhere in his lungs, _alveoli_ the biology teacher called them. Right now every piece of the network feels like a forest fire, and the clotted junk from deep inside stalled right around his collarbone.

Another unproductive cough gets him nowhere. He sucks in oxygen greedily and sips it through a straw. Tremors dance along his diaphragm.

 _Can't breathe_. Not unfamiliar to realize, but panic sets in every time. Usually these episodes hit sometime before the grey light of dawn when the grey, scratchy wool blanket bears down on him heavy as a stool beam. The old method of trying to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth slowly rarely helps then and Steve struggles harder now.

The rubbing increases in vigor, working in tandem with his abortive efforts to free up his airway.

 _Can't breathe_. He swallows, but the lump refuses to go down. Another try, and it stubbornly resists coming up. Redness skims into his face.

“Jesus, your mouth is blue.” Bucky's face swims before his blurry vision.

Steve blinks harder and smiles, a rictus grin pulling his lips wide in a clownish expression that only sears panic into those frosty eyes.

“Stevie, don't move!”

Something swings out of sight at the periphery of his vision. He plants his hands flat on the table.

“Dammit.”

 _Don't swear_ , he mouths, but the sound of a leaky balloon seeps out instead. Concerning how little noise he can really make. Stars pierce his vision. His arms wobble and stiffen, and behind him an angel whispers apologies for the act he's about to do.

_You're forgiven. Always forgiven. In the eyes of God, all is made…_

His thoughts splinter into countless points of white light. Pain explodes over his skin and roars up the dull, sluggish nervous system to the seat of awareness in his brain. A thump straight between his scapula nearly knocks him flat.

Instinct forces Steve to gasp like a drowned boy bobbing up from a passing wave. He chokes on the phlegm lodged in his trachea, and some awful, hard jerk under his ribs hauls his thin body up. An open palm smacks him again on the ribcage and he flails, falling forward. Bucky drags him back to his broad chest, holding him flat, his fist wedged somewhere between his curving, bruised ribs and his cervical vertebrae.

Something comes unwedged. He spits out the gooey mass into his napkin, thoroughly gagging and coughing. But breathing. Every sweet gulp of air parts the sparkling constellations and fireworks blown over his vision.

Bucky sags, though his weight hardly topples the taller teenager. Tightening his arms around Steve, he hugs him firmly, bending forward somewhat to match the curve of the blond's spine.

The coughing is softer now, back to wheezing. Not loud enough to totally eradicate the whisper into a crop of too long, slightly shaggy hair.

“Don't do that to me. Don't you leave.”

Steve blinks away the tears. “No plans on going anywhere, Buck. I got you.”

“You would.” Bucky lets him free from the embrace, and for a moment the phantom impression bears down heavily and welcome across Steve's chest. He aches for the loss as he seems to be twenty pounds lighter, floating into space.

Sitting down abruptly, he sets aside the soiled rag. Bucky reclaims the chair, setting it back upon its feet.

Like nothing happened. Always the same, when boundaries vanish. Steve stares at his hands for a moment and only speaks when he trusts his voice not to give out entirely.

“Thanks, Buck. I don't know what I would do without you.”

If too much of his heart pours into that statement, it mustn't be something the tall brown-haired boy hears. Strapping and fit, he dominates the chair and cracks a wooden leg dropping down into it.

Bucky slides the glass of water over. “Drink that. All of it.”

Steve dutifully obeys, sipping at the lukewarm water under a watchful eye. Bucky's gaze never moves from his throat and mouth, catching every flex of muscle when he swallows. The rose heat from nearly choking remains fully painted over his face.

A hand held out waits for the empty glass. Bucky pours more water from the pitcher for himself. “I think that's our sign today is an indoor day.”

“Don't let me spoil your plans.” Steve's voice is rough and haggard, a shred of its normal volume.

“It's no skin off my nose, Stevie. There's stuff to do around here.”

“Plenty of chores you mean. That's no fun day.” His eyebrows lift, and his mouth tightens into a contracted line.

“What do you mean? Plenty of fun schlepping dishes and tidying up after Becky.” Bucky glances at the pile of disheveled, straggling chrysanthemums and dandelions wilted over a bowl, his sister's latest attempt to brighten up their squalid, empty living room.

He looks away. Steve takes his chance, scooting out of the chair faster than really might be mindful. His sock feet scud over the floor. Bucky turns back in time to see him bend for his shoes, seizing his oversized hand-me-down coat off a peg.

“Wait, hey!”

“Last one to the curb's a rotten egg!”

“Steve! We aren't ten!”

The door squeals on its hinges as Steve launches himself outside. His bare feet slap against the rough wooden boards. Shrugging his coat on by one sleeve to free his hand up, he grips the rail as he sails down the stairs two at a time.

He must be lightheaded from the coughing, or empty headed to even consider going so fast. But the wet air on his face calls him as hard as Bucky's weight vibrating up top urges him on faster.

For once he's ahead. For once Bucky follows him, not the other way around.

“Lord Almighty, would you slow down?”

A flight of stairs separates them and Steve ignores the squelch of wool between his toes. He intends to put his shoes on when he hits the concrete and claims a victory. Bucky's feet clatter on the uneven stairs above him and though his chest burns, the blond practically slides over the last ten steps, bouncing off the last few risers.

The bruises will be worth it, when he spins to see Bucky's face.

Rain flattens curling brown hair to his brow. The wide, glittering eyes pale as a winter morning narrow at their corners. More than ten seconds later Bucky charges down those steps and lurches to a halt, the better not to plow his best friend over.

“What are you doing?” he shouts at the same time Steve crows, “I win!”

They stare at one another. All sparks of mirth slowly fade out as the silence stretches, and the shower sprinkles them both in liberal dustings of rain and the odd blown petal.

“Are you crazy? Trying to get yourself killed?”

Steve's smile goes out, slain on the spot.

“I… I just thought…”

Stammering, he lowers his head, staring at his thin-soled shoes. They fall to the ground, one knocked sideways. He jams his foot into the upright one, the back of the shoe collapsed flat. A bit of wiggling worms his toes deep.

“You could have gotten sick,” Bucky says.

“Sorry.”

“I don't think it's good to be out.”

“I'm okay,” Steve says. He pushes his foot into the other shoe. Water bubbles around his socks, and he has to stoop finally to pull the back up around his heel.

Bucky takes his arm gently. “Come on.”

“No.”

That singular word halts his best friend dead. A line appears between his brows. Never a good sign, when that shows up. Bucky can be ornery as a mule and twice as stubborn.

“What?” The older teen loosens his grip.

Steve stamps his heel down to fit his foot into the stubbornly tight shoe. Getting too small, not that he intends to tell Becky or Bucky about that. The Barnes family does enough for him.

“No. I got you out of the house to have a nice day, so that's what we're going to do.”

Running his hand over his rain-speckled face, the taller man brushes his curling hair back. “This really wasn't what I had in mind. For one, I counted on sun.”

“We don't always get sunshine when we want it. That doesn't mean we have to brood at home.”

“I wasn't brooding,” Bucky says.

“Yes, you were. So look, we're outside. Let's make the most of that. Besides, I want to enjoy your plans as much as you do.”

“You don't even know what they were.”

“Never stopped us before.” Steve gives his best smile, honey after vinegar. “Please?”

Bucky intends to argue. The reasons pile up behind his bright eyes, and he grits his teeth to hold back the words pressing at his tongue. Ten whole seconds under that hopeful look wither any resistance. “Fine.” He sighs. “Get your coat zipped up and give me a few minutes. I need a few things.”

“Don't forget to lock the door,” Steve adds.

“That too.” Bucky points at the overhang of the stairs. “You wait there. At least get out of the rain. I don't want you to catch your death of a cold.”

The worry warms Steve's heart better than the run down the stairs that took far more out of him than he cares to admit. He grins wider. “That's an old wives’ tale. Besides, death shows up and you'd show him what for.”

“That's for sure.” With a shake of his head, Bucky bounds back upstairs.

* * *

Steve squeezes back against the green and blue siding, his arm raised to protect his face. Sunshine pouring down blinds him, reducing the hazy outline to a long shadow amidst the dazzling rays crowning him.

Him, because the rasping baritone can only belong to a man. “Maybe watch where you're going, pipsqueak.”

Bucky is going to owe the weatherman an apology. The forecasted end to the showers came right as they left the apartment, and Steve regrets wearing his heavier clothes as much as he does getting in some guy's way.

“I'm sorry but you knocked me,” he says. His hand lifts to his brow, the better to make out any features.

“I didn't knock no one. Now you thinking about apologizing with feeling this time?”  
His forehead stings and his hip burns from the impact. _Funny how someone who seems shorter than a telephone pole can bump a guy aside._

Laughing may be the worst thing right now, but Steve can't help but chuckle a little. “It's all an accident. Really.”

“Buddy, I don't think you respect me. And I don't deal well with little boys who don't respect me.” The slanted Italian burr comes through clearer as the big, olive-skinned man advances a step, lifting his hand. His leather coat pulls back at the sleeve, sunlight catching on a flashy watch. Married, too, Steve notices, and a southpaw.

He tenses for the punch, raising his hands just like he learned as a kid. “I don't think someone calling others boy gets to talk about respect.”

“I'll show you!”

The man jerks his arm. Leather hauls up to his elbow. Hard fingers curl around his forearm, squeezing enough to bleach his flesh and pull him off balance. He swings around and bumps into a few other teenagers in the lineup at the ticket booth.

“Buddy, you want to show me first, huh?” Bucky shoves the Italian back and throws his hands out to his sides, circling around to place himself mostly in front of Steve.

The Italian hesitates. Steve reads the look on his face as he sizes up the brown-haired man, taking in the breadth of those shoulders and the size of his hands. The t-shirt and coat hide the athletic physique honed that catch the recruiters’ eyes, the kind of build he can never hope to have.

A few whistles erupt from the crowd. The Italian spits on the boardwalk at his feet. “You better watch your back.”

“You better learn some manners,” Steve says, a bit testy. He straightens up, closing in.

Thank all the powers in the world Bucky doesn't stop him from advancing, though his outstretched arm subtly bars the way forward into the fight.

“You want to settle this? I'm happy to take it outside.” Not a speck of fear shows on Bucky's face, his smile for the older man as bright and confident as the one he turns on the girls all too often. “No need to dirty up any of the ladies’ dresses here.”

Several feminine sighs respond in kind, a bouquet of appreciation. Several younger boys in the lineup push forward for a better view, attracted by the violence. Eagerness shines in their faces. Steve rolls up his cuffs.

“Eh, you keep an eye on where you're going, boy.” The epithet cuts loud and booming through the murmurs of the crowd. “Next time, you might not get a gentleman like me. Not everyone forgives clumsiness, even from a sack of bones like you.”

“He's not a sack of bones, and you'll kindly apologize.” The glint in Bucky's eye shows steel behind the smile. He advances a step.

“Make me.”

Steve pulls on his sleeve, dragging him back. “Buck, come on. I don't need his apology.”

“I think you deserve an apology. Accidents happen.”

The stress on the last statement settles badly in the blond's stomach along with everything else. He casts aside the irritation and looks up, giving a minute shake of his head. “I'm good. Don't let him spoil everyone's day worse than he has.”

“I dunno, I think setting a ‘gentleman’ straight on how to behave is important.” Bucky's chin rises and that set to his shoulders portends a willingness to stamp halfway across New York City to make a point.

He pretends not to hear another feminine murmur of appreciation or see the slight nod of a man holding his son by the collar.

The Italian makes a crude gesture, mouth in an ugly sneer. For that alone, Steve loathes him and the unfriendly air he brings to a place meant to be happy. “A gentleman can walk away from a goad.”

“A gentleman doesn't put up with coarse behaviour.” Tossing that out with his trademark candor, Bucky fires a tight, too bright grin at the Italian's retreating back. He allows Steve to pull him away, threading through the line back onto the broad boardwalk littered in seagulls after French fries and parents corralling excited children.

The knot in Steve's chest loosens after they pass several ice cream and hot dog stands. Flags snap in a brisk wind that pummels the shoreline, painting a fringe of whitecaps upon the folded, murky green water. The same breeze drives off the clouds, sweeping away the detritus of the early rainstorm for a brisk, beautiful day.

“So, what's your fancy? Throwing rings on the bottles?” Bucky asks, his arms side like a showman addressing the crowd. He spins in a circle. “Shooting targets? Maybe a ride on the tram?”

“You know I don't like guns.” Steve laughs anyways.

“What about that spinning bowl you have to sit on as long as possible?”

The blond shakes his head. “You just like that because the girls in their skirts go sliding to the bottom.”

Hand to his heart, Bucky pulls a poker face. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You could go on the swings while I get us some snacks.”

“What's this ‘you’ business?” The question drops low, conspiratorial and quiet, matched by the taller man rounding to face him again.

Steve nods at the ten deep line threaded up to Nathan's window. The famous hot dog stand bubbles with people of all ages crowding close to have their shot at the best deal on Coney Island. “You waited for the tickets.”

Bucky crosses his arms over his broad chest. “And some schmoe tried to punch you. I don't mind standing around. It's nice out.”

“We came to have fun, not stand in lines.” Steve puts up a protest even though the fight is lost, and he starts meandering further down the boardwalk. The distant rattle of cars on the rails punctuates the general din, ecstatic squeals and shrieks of fright measuring the moment when the riders plunge over some dizzying drop.

He halts then, staring up at the empty mountain on a diamondback lattice of steel and wood.

Slipping in beside him, Bucky gently nudges his elbow against the blond teen's side. “Come on. Plenty of rides in this park, there has to be something worth spending our tickets on.”

“Maybe the funhouse?” Steve asks.

The smile fixed on his best friend's face freezes over slowly, like someone holding their expression for a camera. Light fades out in his eyes, and the rigid curves of his cheeks and chin tighten. The last place Bucky wants to take his best friend is among a labyrinth of twisted mirrors that contort their images. Too likely the stupid teenagers will point and laugh, mocking everyone that goes past. No way in Hell is he subjecting someone he likes to that. And not for the dear price of tickets, either. They've got enough for a ride for one, and one only. “You could, yeah.”

“What's this ‘you’ business?” Tossing Bucky's own words back at him with a grin means to poke fun. When the smile turns ashen and the brunet looks away, he drops his hand.

The taller man drifts off to the rail, ignorant of the couples and packs of teenagers around him. He hates being broke, unable to provide for a good time for the people who matter. Becky has it better, away at school, but Bucky still has to fight for scraps and hand-me-downs for Steve. He wants a good day out and their spending money barely stretches far enough. If he says a word, he knows Steve won't budge.

They make way, parting how pedestrians will for a rogue element cutting awkwardly through their current.

“Buck, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that.”

“You're golden.”

“Slow down.” He hates calling out the request. Heads turn as he asks, and gauge the short kid ten sandwiches short of a good meal with a look. They always stare at him like he's someone's cast-off kid brother. Their judgment sticks in his belly today worse than most days, and he ducks in to a gap, jogging to catch up.

Bucky already leans on the railing looking down at the beach. “Don't let it bug you, Stevie. I'm sorry if I let you down.”

“You didn't.” Steve tries to catch his breath quietly, but the burning heat fringing his ribs pushes him hard. “Really, it's fine if we don't see the funhouse. Just an idea.”

“Wish it weren't twelve tickets for two.”

He blows out a thin whistle through his teeth. Good for an excuse to gasp for a deep breath, Steve sags against the crusted, graffiti carved plank with the gratitude a sailor shows to a gangplank. “Mighty overpriced if you ask me.”

“It's good for a scare, though.” The hypnotic lull of the water dragging over the golden sand holds Bucky rapt. Surf forms a ragged lacy chain high up the beach.

“You can't be thinking of going down there.” Steve shakes his head, the wind blowing his bangs over the bridge of his nose. A futile effort to keep his gaze free forces him to pin the longer strands to his temple. “It's not even sixty-five degrees today.”

The taller youth smirks. “Doesn't stop the birds.”

“You'll be freezing cold and you didn't bring a towel.” If he speaks slowly, he can pretend his teeth are not chattering and that Bucky won't hear.

“Cheaper than the fun house.”

Bucky palms a short tail of yellow tickets from his coat pocket and holds them out. The wind rips at the loose end, flailing about with its captive grey. “Here. I want you to pick any ride you want.”

Six tickets curl and flutter in snapping lines. Six barely nets one person a trip around the bumper cars or on the giant swing. The rollercoaster takes five alone. Steve's heart tightens in his chest and not, for once, from the cold and the adrenaline.

He reaches out to close Bucky's fingers over the ribbon of flimsy lemon cardboard. His palm presses to the warmth of his skin. “Nah.”

“Steve.” A word holds a thousand shades of emotion. Forget paintings and their thousand words. That lone sound puts a pang through the blond that hurts worse than all the needles and jabs at the doctor. Bucky hangs his head, chin tipping forward until it touches his chest. “That's all I got. I'm sorry.”

“I don't need rides to have a good time.”

A broken note spills out at a whisper. “Please?”

Steve shakes his head. His teeth dip hard into the satiny flesh of his cheek, finding the old grooves left by frequent bites. Worry carves out harder lines on his face, a mirror to the shadows closed over his best friend.

It hurts to see the shame and regret painted on Bucky's face. _He should never look like that. Not on account of me._

Raising his hand, he brushes his fingers uncertainly over Bucky's left shoulder. Their height makes it harder for him to do more than that. No manly grasp of pals here, embarrassing as that is.

The brunet finches away as though stung. Steve staggers back against the rail.

“I wanted to do better.” Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets, shoulders rounding out in a hunch. “You deserve better.”

“It's not like that. You know it, Buck. Rides are just rides. Heck, I'd have fun sitting on the kiddie train with you.”

Steve needs ten steps to catch up, and double his normal pace to keep at the taller man's side. He pushes himself, knowing the morning will bring aches and wheezing. But leaving his best friend alone would be a sin worse than trying to jog.

“We'd look awfully stupid with our legs dangling over the sides.”

“Better than being the sod who pays ten tickets for a fifteen second scare,” says Steve.

They pull to a pause in front of a long line and a fence painted with orange rails and posts. Behind them the Atlantic roars, crashing into the beach. Long, barnacle-studded pilings driven into the shore anchor a T-shaped pier standing out defiant against the ocean's might.

 _Thunderbolt_ painted in tall letters arches above the gate open to riders piling into the famed rollercoaster. Wooden rails loop and twist in sinuous detail above a fringe of green. He stares at the stiff white bars supporting the apparatus.

“Wow.”

Bucky tips his head. “What, you've never seen it up close?”

“When do we bother coming down this far? Been a spell.” Steve traces the curves and drops of the triple hills nested together. His thumb follows the swish. “Give me a pencil and I could copy this with my eyes closed. It's balanced beautifully, the way a good bit of engineering should.”

The ticket seller hears that sigh and turns to them. Some quiet smile of appreciation replaces his enthusiastic mask. “You gents planning on riding today?”

Steve brightens. He looks at Bucky and nods.

“How much?”

“Make it four each for the pair of you!” The older fellow waves his hand. “Discount for someone with a good eye. Mind you hurry on.”

The smile tightens and Bucky looks away to the sea. Poking out of his pocket, the yellow tail of the ticket run wobbles in the breeze. “Maybe another time.”

That spark of hope buries itself deep. Steve keeps his thoughts to himself, standing in closer to the taller frame of his friend.

“Suit yourself,” says the seller. He ushers in another clot of excited riders to find their place.

“Buck?”

“Let's go.”

* * *

The anger sketched over him turns inwards. Bucky forces himself to walk slowly and wedge a smile into place rather than let any of his disappointment and loathing leak out more than it has. A beautiful day on the seashore and all he seems to do is pour water on Steve's good mood.

Everything today is for Steve, about Steve, and falls completely short of the mark. A fight nearly spoiled their day from the start and now not a single ride seems suitable. They leave the clattering _Thunderbolt_ in their wake, the sullen clicking of the cars lurching into motion the mockery of a raven in the wood.

He'd like to punch something, he really would. Gentle fingers prise his fist open as they pass down a lane cutting into the park, away from the ocean.

“Hey.”

One word. Two fingers insinuate themselves among his own. This runs a terrible risk, even if he hesitates to keep his digits clenched to his palm. Steve's touch is light and warm, a little sweaty around the edges.

Nerves? Could be.

“Yeah?”

Bucky refuses to look his way, one footstep closer to a transgression he, at least, knows the crowds would frown on. Even as they press in and wash over the brunet and the blond, the mass of humanity occasionally looks. They'd have plenty of reason to if they could read what lies on his heart and soul.

“All good.” Steve shares that irrepressible grin again, trying to shed more light than the damn sun.

But it isn't. He knows that even as he casts a look back at the water rushing beyond the pier. He hears the laboured breathing and the faltering steps, the rattle harboured in that frail body. “Yeah. Not really my thing today, though.”

“You sure?” Turning his face up, the blond frowns. Whatever he reads leaves doubt dragging after his worn shoes.

He nods. “Let's sell these tickets and go grab fries to share. Sound good?”

It doesn't. Not to him, and certainly not to Steve. But nothing keeps Steve Rogers down, not for a second. The grin and nod affirm the idea as a bright one, and they're on their way.

In the face of betrayal, Bucky murmurs, “I swear I'll make it up to you.”

Steve doesn't hear through the clattering rides and shouting voices, laughter swift on the brine-kissed wind. Not that it matters, for the vow sworn by James Buchanan Barnes is with the sea and the sky and all between.

 


	4. Temperance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The past and the present start to braid together in important ways for the future as Bucky is acquitted.
> 
> Major arcana: [Temperance](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/temperance/)

“After six weeks of deliberation, James Barnes was acquitted on all counts.” A radio crackles somewhere below. He rushes onwards to escape the radius.

Rain leaves the corbels and rooftops dangerously slick. His boots grip worn tar paper shingles, skidding across the rough surface by a few inches on every landing. Reaching out, he grabs a rusting fire escape that groans in his hand.

Freedom tastes like a surge of adrenaline at the back of his throat and sounds like the thunder clap landing on concrete. He rolls across the warehouse, taking the impact on his vibranium shoulder. Vibrations swallowed into the metal leave the meticulously balanced joints and internal mesh humming.

Violet energy blooms around his palm, an iridescent wave racing in reverse to the prosthetic. A wisp of energy scales his spinal column, invigorating every movement. His eyes widen.

“Hallelujah.” A dead run carries him aloft, an eagle released from captivity.

Bucky understands the inner workings up to a point. Vibranium’s strange chemical attributes and elemental composition transcends science into a kind of magic. All that matters is the perfectly tempered balance between strength and suppleness, and how that terrible strength infused in the Soviet Union remains with him in a superior form.

Lights flash on behind him. Someone hauls open a window, and the wet, gusting wind slaps his face.

“Hey! You take your parkour someone else!” The shout heavily accented by Polish chases him.

A woman's shrill call follows. “Shut the window and come inside.”

Bucky grabs hold of a slippery gutter, his hand deforming the metal as he slows his fall down the side of the building. Another handhold crumple under him, leaving him swinging twenty-five feet above the ground.

“Shit!”

No one reprimands the Russian curse.

His black boots hook along a bricked-up window. He staggers and pulls himself up just as the gutter pipe rips free. Brick crumbles under his vibranium fingers, and he rams the digits deep into the building façade.

 _Wouldn't trade this for the world._ A savage lupine grin curls the corners of his mouth. Peering up at the cloud-choked sky exposes his face to a steady patter of rain. Damp, long hair curls against his collar. He never bothered to cut it in prison. The cool April shower soaks his skin, rinsing him clean under the baptismal font of the heavens. Purifying the traces of the man he was.

For a time he hangs in space, relishing the water trickling down his throat and gathering under his jacket. The ache in his strained shoulder and the pain in the sole of his right foot deepen until he cannot blot out the slow burn.

Other memories encroach where his mental clarity fades. He cannot forget Steve's drawn expression crumpling at the edges in relief at the verdict. The stinging reprimand of a guard under the flickering, industrial lighting at the International Criminal Court overlaps the darkness in his thoughts. Faces and names spread like a poker hand he is doomed to see every time he shuts his eyes.

Bucky swallows. Beads pool on his lips. Damp clothes shuffle around his body. He tastes the city like a kiss and he swallows the essence of New York down after his long crawl through the monochrome taiga.

 _Time to get moving again_.

His path weaves beyond skyscrapers and glass towers sprouting on the footprints of old factories and shipyards into the staggered terraces of southern Brooklyn. The further he treks past into the old neighbourhoods, the easier movement becomes. He lopes like a wolf through the boreal forest, streetlights his pines and lonely, unguarded balconies or fire escapes his stepping stones.

Another wild leap catches him high over the gap. A siren wails in the distance. For once, Bucky Barnes is wholly and totally free.  

* * *

Shadows unfurl from the freshly washed boardwalk, gathering between the abandoned lanes that slice south to the iron-grey sea. Some of the most valuable land in the whole of the United States, and not a single person lingers anywhere nearby for at least twenty yards. For that, the forlorn outpost attracts him far more than it would at the height of summer, alight with screaming teenagers and tweens too cool for anything but selfies in front of the rusting rides due for another coat of paint.

Bucky keeps to a chain-link fence bolstered by drooping tarps and wet signs faded under the sun, bypassing a row of parked cars wedged into a battered, pothole-stricken lot. The haphazard metal barricade fails to keep out curious seagulls or a season’s worth of litter accumulated along the gutter, further proof of the decline of the great bastion of summertime dreams.

Rustling plastic shades a skinny teenager in an oversized hoodie until they practically collide. He jerks back, and the boy's accusatory face shoots a chocolate brown glare at him.

“Hey, watch where you're going!”

A buzzing noise halos the kid. The soldier raises his right hand in apology.

“Sorry.”

A crude gesture slashes up from under a ratty cuff, middle finger flipped up. Bucky frowns, and a glimpse of those obnoxious wireless headphones contributing an ugly growl of chattering sounds constituting music. Probably doesn't hear a word he says.

He pushes on deeper into Coney Island, conscious of the emptiness of life. A sharp look thrown back over his shoulder marks the receding teenager headed for desolate Surf Avenue and its boarded up shops. The kid never looks back, wrapped up in his musical bubble.

“He didn't even know me,” Bucky says to the lonely cement tables on a patio.

Total disregard from the only living soul crossing his path. The dreaded Winter Soldier, and he doesn't even get the time of day.

He stops midway and laughs, a rusty wheeze growing in strength. The brightening light rolls over him weakly as a thicker cloud bank breaks apart.

The Shangri-la of his childhood lies around him, reduced to uneasy slumber. Dormant rides stand silent watch, the great steel foundations piled up in diamond and triangular axes to rear into the sky. Colourful tents sag around the skeletal structures uplifting them from the southernmost promontory of Long Island, the cherry red and sapphire stripes somehow diminished below the thick charcoal clouds churning overhead. He ghosts along the fringes of those padlocked gates wrapped in curling tape, someone’s idea of returning festivity to the somber, nearly depressing weight of time.

In the distance, a calliope chime rings out, thin and tinny above the unceasing gurgle of the waves pounding bit by bit at the shore. Rugged stones spangled by barnacles and a string of algae replace the snapping pennants and beachcombers he expected.

A leering clown and boards pass him, abandoned. He scarcely thinks about where he goes, lured in by the calliope. Orange fencing calls him, as much as memory does.

They stood here once, a lifetime ago.

“Five tickets,” he said then and pushed a strip of yellow cardboard into Steve's hand.

Riding that rollercoaster wasn't possible for the skinny teen with a mop of unkempt blond hair and clothes two sizes too big, even darned by Rebecca. The temptation burned a hole in Bucky's pocket and the old cast of regret weakly rolls over him.

Steve's hopeful look still hurts the charred wounds bruising his heart.

He has the whole boardwalk to himself. Great, treated slats of the pier held up by wide wooden pillars extend into the grey waters. Pipes poke out at intervals, disgorging stormwater in a stream. Only the gulls take advantage of the restless sea, dipping into the waves and rising on sparkling columns with their prize morsels. Their incessant skirling welcomes him to the rail.

Bucky runs his thumb over weathered initials carved into the scored paint. He leans into his crossed forearms, shutting his eyes. Blocking out the creeping anxiety of someone sneaking up on him or a gun trained on his back consumes him.

“I'm sorry, Stevie. I am.”

Confessions paid on a bit of steel bar vanish into the creaking metal and the lonely sand.

“Back then I woulda given you anything I could. You deserved this.” His voice breaks, even at a whisper. “You deserved everything I had.”

For five minutes, he stands in the open and breathes. Wetness trickles from his slick hair across his brow, a stream falling like tears over his cheekbones and onto his collar.

When he turns back to the city, fate slaps him full across the face.

 ** _Thunderbolt_**.

Proud red letters outlined in ruby marquee lights hang teen feet in the air. Serpentine coils twist and roil above the slatted boardwalk, reaching a ferocious vertical tower pointed defiantly at the sky.

A small orange stand hawking souvenirs and photos stands adjacent to a nook hosting a red-shirted cashier. The young man is nose-deep in a book, lost to the world. A mop of flax hair pokes out under his Yankees baseball cap.

Unable to stop himself, Bucky stumbles with none of his characteristic grace around the labyrinth of orange fencing meant to corral a non-existent crowd into a tidy line. He jumps the last barricades, his landing soft enough that his inquiry shatters the poor kid's reverie.

“Hey.” Palming his pants, he comes up with a crumpled twenty dollar bill from a pocket. “Can I get a ticket to ride?” He holds it out, hiding the prosthetic behind his hip.

When the cashier looks up, his heart skips ten beats. Thin and lanky, not totally filled out, the boy isn't older than sixteen. Big blue eyes leave the page of some thrilling grim dark fantasy epic and stare back eighty years right to the perturbed teenager he was, trading coins for ride tickets.

Steve Rogers stares up and starts on his stool. “Um. Yeah, of course. That'll be ten credits. So ten bucks.”

The bill falls in front of him. Bucky tries not to blink, his shoulders tensing. A slow crawl of unease tiptoes along his broad back. “Sure.”

He manages not to sound like he's choking.

“You could get a ride pass for thirty bucks and go as much as you wanted,” the cashier says. His faltering sales pitch lands flat on his face when he holds out two five dollar bills in change, and his smile fades into a softened reserve. Uncertainty paints his gestures.

He's terrified.

Fear is familiar as the steel arm severed by a repulsor. Bucky knows the ins and outs of that sorry country all too well. He takes a step back and breaks eye contact by staring at the bright mandarin orange rails churning in corkscrews. They shine wet with oil and grease under the veneer left by the rain.

“I'll be the only rider today, huh?”

“Yeah.” The kid clutches his book in his hands. “First time?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Yes. It was a long time ago.”

“Don't remember?”

“How could I forget?” The pale smile touches Bucky's lips and tilts askew, his frosted eyes flicking back to the empty boardwalk again. “I wanted to, but never got the chance.”

“Today's your lucky day then.” Shuffling to the door, the teenager waves his skinny arm out at the hut further along. “I'll get you a couple extra go rounds, just cause.”

“Thanks.” The apology stuck in his throat, the soldier heads through the gate to the cars rolling up to greet him.

* * *

Dozens of people press around them and Steve's death grip on Bucky's olive sleeve slips off the strong wrist beneath. He clings to the fabric, dreading the smart new coat might tear as badly as he worries about separation.

Music spills from a dozen speakers mounted on telephone poles over the garish rides blitzing the boardwalk in light. Couples squeeze together to fit past the shuffling line to another ride. Pushed up against the metal barricade, the blond teen winces when he bangs his knee.

Deadweight slows Bucky down as he bulls through the masses, using his larger shoulders to cut a space. Pedestrians press in at the pause in his step, inhibiting any further headway. He turns, pulling Steve in.

“Hey, I don't want to lose you.”

“Never gonna happen,” Steve says. The length of the taller man's body gives welcome shelter from being pushed about by careless folks too wrapped up in their popcorn and Coney dogs to pay him any attention.

“I don't even know how you see anything in this crush.”

Bucky laughs. “Sometimes you have to get higher to find what you're looking for.”

Polka dot skirts and letter jackets blot out Steve's view of the rides. Only craning his head back lets him see more than the flashing neon signs and blinking lightbulbs. His eyes glitter with the dazzle of one bulb bursting, the kaleidoscope swirl of blues and greens erupting against his vision. Throwing his arm up to shield himself too late, he groans.

“Buck. Darn, that's bright.”

A gate slides back and a dozen riders rush out from the tilting spinner, knocking against one another and everyone else in sight. Steve catches sight of Bucky bending to help a girl stumbling over the boards, catching her arm. She looks up to him with a beaming smile, cherry red lips turned up sweetly.

No girl ever looks at him that way.

He swallows his pride and waits to call his best friend's name, but the next set of passengers come galloping out of the gate, noisier than the first. Al the rowdy shouts and whoops belong to the guys held back for the ladies to make their escape first.

Their footing is no better, and in most cases worst. A teen twice Steve's weight trips right over him and goes sprawling to the guffaws of his friends. The blond falls back against a painted railing, clutching his side. His foot throbs, a big dirty print squashed over the top of his shabby Oxford loafer.

“What the heck, dude.” The guy scrambles up to his feet and goes down to one knee, center of balance thrown off completely.

Without a second word, Steve darts around the mass of young men too busy laughing to offer a hand or impede his way. The masses of arms and shoulders block his sight of even someone as tall and strong as Bucky.

“Buck!” he calls. No one answers but for a few titters. Life always brings a few people who laugh.

The amusement park offers scant choices at the outset to finding his best friend other than waiting around or commandeering the speakers. That's right out. Pride alone keeps him from considering marching up to a ticket booth, since the lost kid announcements that play over the loudspeakers long since ended when parents carted their tots home.

 _And I'm no kid, no matter what_. He holds that thought to himself, excusing himself as he brushes past girls in wide skirts and rolled socks laughing at life. Pushing against the current is exhausting after a few short minutes of effort. For every two steps forward, something comes along to block him: a barricade, a couple cozied up a bit too close in public, a line unwilling to break.

Steve sighs as he passes by the illuminated neon hotdog sign of Nathan's for the third time. The famous Coney Island restaurant makes a great landmark for his restless wandering, even if he can't find Bucky anywhere.

“Go high,” he repeats to himself. The crush doesn't thin out near the order counters but he diverts behind the garbage cans and the open kitchen to find the patio. A man dusts crumbs off the table and holds a tray while his girl scoots around.

 _Go high_. Bucky's voice hums in his thoughts. He sees the opportunity and awkwardly scampers forward, all knees and elbows akimbo, breezing past a pair of miffed sophomores in matching blouses.

“Pardon” slips out of his mouth, apology received if not accepted.

He rebels at the very idea in his thoughts and throws down a discarded napkin on the metal bench as a sop for his conscience. Then Steve hops right up, using the extra two feet of height to give him an advantage over the crowd.

A few people catcall the skinny kid standing on the table, and he wobbles, clutching at the dinky red umbrella for balance. Craning his head, he filters through blonds and the odd redhead, baseball caps and sunhats for a familiar face.

“You gonna use that table as a ladder or order something?”

Steve glances over at the pinched face of a college boy, all guts and attitude over a plastic tray laden with food.

 “I'm just looking for my friend,” Steve says. The excuse is lame in his ears. He offers a rueful smile to the impatient blonde twirling her hair around her pink manicured nails.

 “Well look somewhere else already.” She snaps her gum and her earrings wobble. _A broad,_ his mom would call that sort of woman, and not with the undertone of admiration.

“Come on, pipsqueak, my girl and I are on a date. You gonna stand there all night?”

The blond teen sends a prayer for relief, edging along the bench. He hops down unsteadily and whatever advantage he had on the college students vanishes in a heartbeat.

She giggles, pressing in to her boyfriend. “Aw, you're sure the cops won't come get you for breaking curfew?”

“I'm old enough to be out, ma'am,” Steve says.

Exiting the patio gracefully demands what little self-worth he can scrape together, and his smile fades into a trudging, wordless sigh past the blur of faces and names. Coney Island erupts in shrill noise and bright light around him, bombarding him with unwanted stimuli that grate on every stinging nerve.

He slumps on a bench facing the water, pulling his coat around him. This close to the sea, the humidity inflames the congestion in his lungs. Coughing into his sleeve, he waits for the spasms to reach their peak rather than fighting him. Shoulders rock against the back of the bench and he shakes.

“Stevie!” A distant call cuts through the tinny old calliope notes off the rides up above.

Another round of hacks grip his chest and squeeze. Steve bends forward and rocks back, that old familiar move, and he sags against the bench.

Bucky must follow the sound because he jogs up the boardwalk to Steve's side, bag bouncing at his side. The old canvas strap bites into his coat. “You know the sea does you no good.”

 “Everyone talks about how great walks on the beach are.” He grins.

The manic sparkle in his eyes and red in his cheeks gets Bucky tutting over him like a mother hen. He hates that. The weakness, and the need for his best friend to play nursemaid more often than not.

“I was looking for you after we got separated.”

“I couldn't find you,” Steve says.

Bucky's arm wraps around his shoulder and pulls him near to the heated fragrance of clean soap and leather that aligns with James Buchanan Barnes somewhere in his unconscious mind, a familiar smell like the faded lavender and vanilla of his mother's long ago pillowcases.

“I helped a dame get on her feet and you were gone.”

No accusation colours the words, but shame settles in deeper around Steve's heart. He wrings his hem through his thin fingers. “Bad luck on our parts, huh? I kept checking until I got near the coney stand.”

“I stuck out near the ride until I figured you weren't coming back,” Bucky says.

“Never going to leave you behind.”

“It's a long walk back home.”

“You have the key too.”

Bucky chuckles softly. “I do, don't I? You'd be waiting a while.”

“You would stay here after dark looking for me?”

The idea warms him a little, for all he keeps coughing now and then. His sleeve pressed to his mouth keeps the noise to himself.

“Under every ride.”

“I can just imagine you crawling around on hands and knees calling my name.”

The chuckle rises into a warmer, copper laugh that comes from the tips of Bucky's shoes up to his throat and rolling out over the breakers washing the strand. “Yoohoo, Stevie. Yeah, that'd be me all right. Meanwhile you'd be asleep by the door.”

“I'd stay up all night.”

“Right, so I roll in before work and there you are, eyes red.”

“Big bags under them.”

“And laughing at me for being a mess.” Bucky squeezes him close, careful not to crush the blond against his chest or too much in his arms.

Not a word passes between them for a bit. The moment stretches long and thin like taffy, enveloping him in its sweetness. He dares breathe as little as possible in case someone notices. Then everything breaks as Bucky drops back onto the bench, looking out on the boardwalk.

“You know what?”

“What?”

 “We should have a meeting spot in case this happens again.”

Like a four-year-old being upbraided, the suggestion lands with a thump. Steve fixes that smile and tries to sound light. “Yeah, maybe a good idea.”

“Somewhere easy to get to. Where do you think?”

“Ice cream stand?”

“There's awfully long lines.”  
Steve turns on the bench and points at the rickety orange structure blooming like a lily over the beach. “How about the swings? The crowds never get very thick along the fence.”

Making his own careful inspection, Bucky finally nods. “You know, that's not a bad spot. The blind curve on the rollercoaster doesn't give much of a view.”

“The entrance to the rotating swing is on the other side of the lane.” Steve ventures a braver smile.

 “Deal. You get separated from me, we meet up right there.”

He grins, and then blinks when Bucky pulls out a penknife. “Buck, what are you doing? Put that away.”

“I'm going to mark the post so I don't forget.”

He rises and strides over the boardwalk, the Swiss army knife concealed against his palm. Steve lurches off the bench and walks double-time just to catch up.

“That's vandalism. We can't do that.”

A groan bleeds out as Bucky saunters parallel to the rail. Overhead, the rollercoaster cars stream past on an inner rail, accompanied by eager squeals. “Look at the railing and tell me fifty people haven't done this before.”

He speaks the truth, the scars on the paint and the wooden posts tell him that. Rust bites into the gaps in the protective coating around the metal tube stretching out to divide the weedy lot at the foot of the coaster from the boardwalk.

Shaking his head, Steve puts his hand on the brunet's arm. “You shouldn't. It's wrong.”

“Stevie, for once, let me do something.”

“Just cause everyone else has,” and the spiel begins, rolling off his tongue.

Bucky puts two fingers right over his lips, and he tastes the cool metal. Words die right then and there under the subtle pressure cushioning the digits. Darkness blossoms out of his pupils, widening their depth.

The knife leaves a quick score in the paint on a fresh spot right in plain view. A subtle twist grooves out the notch, spreading a longer line. Bucky carves a few curves and shapes, his hand still pressed perpendicular to Steve's mouth.

In between the electric lights, the shadows draw in closer on furtive waves, gathering around them.

“You just wait a second.”

Not like Steve has a choice in the matter. His tongue lies glued to his upper palate, and breath barely stirs in warm purls around the fingertips anchored under his nose. He wouldn't dare, not for the health of an Olympic track star.

Bucky adds another quick slash to create a plus sign, and his handiwork completes in only a few seconds taking forever. Every little adjustment leaves cold sweat beading at Steve's hairline. He wants to look aside and check whether anyone else notices this act of graffiti and vandalism, much less the breach of propriety.

His mouth softens under the fingers pressing down. Holding the form of an unspoken word cannot last forever. The softer satin past his cracked lips brushes against Bucky's skin, tasting him, as intimate as a first kiss.

Heat explodes in his cheeks. He should step back.

He doesn't.

Bucky drops his hand a lifetime later to his shoulder, pulling Steve close to stand beside him. Not in a tight embrace the way he might want, and the stutter stop motion film coming undone leaves them shoulder to shoulder.

Everything hurts in a welter of confusion. His chest burns and his toes in the too big shoes curl, wrapping darned socks around his feet. “Buck?”

The cymbal clang breaks whatever spell of a feverish dream settled on him. Bucky nods at the rail. “What do you think?”

“I don't think…”

No more words. His eyes fall on the scratched marks.

“See, we'll always have our meeting spot.” He grins, impish and sly beneath the veil of nightfall.

Steve slowly blinks back the stinging wetness filming his eyes. He shakes his head a bit. “You shouldn't have done that.”

“But I wanted to.” Once more Bucky's hand slides from mid-back to his shoulder, sculpting a firm grip around the edge. The familiarity and the warmth in his gesture cannot be misconstrued, not questioned by friends.

The blond nods. He can't find any strength to argue, his flagging energy reserves supplying a bit of a chuckle. “If it makes you happy.”

“You always do. Come on, let's go get some fries.”

You. Not it. The mistake could be only that, lilting on the air. Bucky guides him away and they leave behind the fresh scar on the rail.

 **BB + SR**.

 

 


	5. Wheel of Fortune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [Wheel of Fortune](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/wheel-of-fortune/)

Tired buildings resolve to crisp outlines as the windshield wipers fight a valiant battle against the downpour. Steve grips the wheel and threads the sedan around small lakes covering the pitted asphalt roads.

“You can turn that off. I know where I'm going.” he nods to the fancy display split into a digitalized map and a complex blend of information.

Natasha cups her hand over the earpiece and scrolls down the data feed. “You sure? The roads are a maze around here.”

For the first time since they left the International Criminal Court, he smiles. “You can't imagine how much time I spent down here.”

“Happening place.” She nods at the vacant storefronts and tired buildings sagging behind faded plywood. _Coming in 2016, Brooklyn's newest entertainment center!_ shouts one flapping yellow sign, two years out of date.

“Used to be a happening place.”

The car sweeps in a tight turn and plants them strictly in a residential neighbourhood behind the row of abandoned stores. Small houses show equal signs of disrepair in badly patched roofs and sagging front porches. Barred windows and doors depreciate to the limited charm.

Nat sinks back into her seat. “I'm getting disjointed reports. Sightings still put Bucky in Queens and Manhattan.”

“Nothing concrete? He's out there somewhere.”

She shakes her head. Her gaze slides over the yards and roofline through the water-dappled side window. “Sooner or later the chatter will reach the media.”

“I'm not liking the odds they'll overlook this story.”  

Rain crashes down harder on them, driven at a severe angle by shifting gusts that shake the car. The wipers fight a losing battle against the water pouring over the windshield. Steve's fingers creak over the stitched leather wheel.

“We're up against a closing window.”

“I miss the days when--”

“Steve, stop!” Natasha's shrill cry cuts him off.

He slams the brake pedal flat without questioning her motives. The back end of the car lurches up, throwing them forward against their webbed seat belts. Breath punched from the redhead’s chest blows out in a grunt.

A teenager in a dark hoodie slams his open palm down on the hood of the car, shouting at them through the downpour. Dark eyes bore an accusing glare through the smearing water sheeting over the glass.

Natasha reacts before Steve can, freeing herself from the tangle of the seat belt and darting out the passenger-side door. She swings around to confront the guy before he smacks his palm on the ignition button to shut the engine down.

“Anyone ever tell you use to use a crosswalk?”

Under a full salvo, the kid swivels on her, hands raised. His full mouth curls into a sneer. “You almost hit me! I was crossing the road.”  

“Wrong answer, you weren't.”

He stares at her and repeats, “You crazy or something? I coulda been hit.”

“He can't hear a word you're saying.” Steve moves briskly through the puddles, sending fine sprays of water over the car and the sidewalk. In two quick steps, he closes the distance with the man and woman. His hand reaches out.

The kid flinches, but not before Steve pulls away the stubby white plastic nodule stuffed in his ear. Tinny music spills out. The thumping beat crackles around the gurgled vocals.

“You know listening on this volume can damage your long-term hearing?”

“The hell?” The kid looks between Natasha and Steve, scowling. Broad fingers close before he snatches the earbud away “That's mine and my problem.”

“Dangerous, too. You might not hear cars coming.” Natasha flips her deep red hair off her shoulder.

“Whatever.”

“That attitude will get you injured or worse,” Steve adds. He sighs and offers the headphone back.

“So? What's your problem?”

Natasha retreats a few steps back for the passenger side door, wiping off her jacket. “Don't waste your time, Steve. That's as close to thanks as you may get.”

The teenager flips her off and finds Steve standing in front of him, shaking his head, towering over him by a good head and a half. Well over six feet tall, the blond rarely uses his size to impose on another person. It does that for itself.

“Let's show some respect to the lady. She stopped an accident today.”

“You're as crazy as that guy on Luna Pier. Jumping at shadows.” He swipes the headphone and dries it off on his drenched hoodie, like the cotton might somehow wick up the few drops.

Steve frowns but keeps his thoughts to himself. Better to square his shoulders and walk away, giving the youth no reason for a fight. The bitter taste of irritation blooms and blows away with a thought.

When his shoulder brushes against the teen's, the boy staggers back. Not much to him, he stumbles through the puddles. “Shit, you're as big as he was, too.”   

The words sear themselves into the blond captain's mind. He lands back in the driver's seat, instinctively flexing his legs to avoid bumping the steering wheel. Even good German and Japanese luxury sedans aren't built for people of his size, few as they are.

“Gives you hope for future generations, doesn't it?” Natasha belts herself in while watching the kid slouch his way to the other side of the road.

The blinking red ignition button turns white when Steve passes his palm over the interface. The engine turns over so quietly he wonders whether the vehicle is ready to move. Purring, subtle vibrations propelled up the stick shift guide him to move.

“Not much has changed since I was a kid.”

“I find that hard to believe. Walking in front of cars?”

“Sometimes we were offered a quarter to play in traffic.”

“Clearly an offer you never took.”

“I was tempted, sometimes.”

Blotting her face with her sleeve, Nat picks up the earpiece and fits it into place. Her slim fingers score a fresh orchestral composition of data from the screen. Lines mark her brow as she concentrates on the fresh volley of leads.

“Any suggestions?”

“You'd think a big, sexy guy wouldn't hide like a needle in a haystack.”

“Not the kind of visual I was going for.”

“Uncomfortable?” “No, ma’am.”

She smiles, a slight curve to her cherry-red mouth implying all sorts of terrible truths. How many men lost their senses when crossing blades with her wit? Steve prefers not to pursue that line of thought.

The car accelerates past the houses lurching shoulder to shoulder. They slip past tired brick church, blue eyes scanning the tiny yard trimmed in bushes and the long alleyway linking the backsides of the houses.

The teen's words roll through his thoughts, and he cuts a southern path without even thinking about it.

“No hits in Queens. I'm picking up chatter about a sighting near the Botanical Gardens.”

“He's not there,” Steve says automatically. The engine revs as he weaves around a few parked cars.

“You're driving rather aggressively for haystack searching.” Natasha taps the device in her ear, and syncs up the latest data on the screen.

“What if I need him to be there?”

“You want a diversion, you've got one.” Natasha checks the buckles on her boots, and she strips out of her camel trenchcoat. Beneath her slick black jacket clings to her body, sealed tighter by tugs on strategic zippers. “I'll take care of it. Queens or Manhattan?”

Steve slows the car as they thread closer to the Atlantic. “Queens. More believable if they think Bucky went north.”

“I'm sure all the travelers at JFK will appreciate our thoughtfulness. You still owe me Paris.”

He grips her shoulder, a warm hand resting on the wet leather heated by her skin beneath. “Paris. I won't forget.”

She blew him a kiss. “Better not. Give me fifteen minutes.”  

Before the car even halts, she pushes open the door and leaps out. Hitting the ground at a jog, Natasha zigzags through the low buildings commanding the frontage along a nearly deserted road.

Two quick turns later, Steve speeds along the main east-west avenue bounding the waterfront. Southern Long Island stretches out against the grey water heaving with whitecaps and swirling, keening gulls.

A beautiful sight in a melancholic way washes up against him. He swerves into the nearest lot he can see, a place abandoned but for a dumpster and a few melancholy bikes chained up to a painted grate. The luxury car sticks out like a sore thumb. He grabs a battered baseball cap on his way out.

The security system ought to repel anything short of a concerted Russian hacking attempt. He locks the doors, his pace smart and perfunctory. The garbage truck trundling by belches diesel fumes into the air. Lights blink over the intersection deprived of car traffic.

Sights and sounds should assault him, not the strange quiet that presages a storm or follows on its tail. Familiar shapes swoop and bend above the barren trees, the white exoskeleton of a rollercoaster superimposed on a Ferris wheel.

It seems like a lifetime ago he stood here in person, swarmed by fellow teenagers and twenty somethings. His hands slide into his pockets. Melancholy and slightly disoriented by sadness, the feelings poison him as he passes the chain link fences.

Cheap blinds hang in the windows of the empty ticket booths. After the fourth, he turns into the park that represented so many hopes and dreams to a much younger self, the Steve Rogers on the cusp of manhood, unaware fully of the dark shadows on the horizon.

His pace quickens though he cannot say why. Every wisp of clattering metal reminds him of the carnival music piped through the rides. Every breeze lifting the thick, oily smell of grease throws him right back to the lines snaking around the rides that even then looked held together by spit and polish, not much else.

On a lark, he ducks into the nearest open building, an arcade filled by flashing lights and upright consoles. The bored employee briefly looks up from his mobile phone to answer a few quick questions.

“Haven't had anyone in for the past couple of hours except a couple teenagers.”

Steve hates to flash a photograph but he pulls out his flipphone, thumbing through the image gallery until finding something he likes. He shows the postage stamp screen.

“Him?”

“Nope.” He squints up at Steve again. “You meant to meet here or something?”

 “Something like that.”

“I'm not supposed to say this but there's another game room down on the boardwalk.” “How would I get there?” Games were never Bucky's thing, but open shops are few and far between in shoulder season.

“Go down the lane and turn right on the boardwalk. You'll see the signs past the big ice cream shop.”

Steve pulls five dollars from his wallet and lays it on the counter. “That's for your help. Thanks.”

He emerges back out into the grey gloom of the afternoon, and cold water trickling down the back of his neck leaves him shivering. _Like someone walked over my grave_. That's what they used to say, once. However, the only ghosts he expects to find here are plastic bags and shadows.

The instructions given to him bring him to the boardwalk, the sea on his left and curiously empty, forlorn shells of buildings on the right. Ahead of him, a girl rushes for shelter beneath an awning. Seagulls dive on spilled chips gone soggy in a puddle.

Whatever compels him to carry on to a souvenir shop, he can't say. A bell jangles overhead overhead and an absurd driftwood and seaglass chime announces his arrival to the furthest corners of the crowded store. Colourful t-shirts and sandals blot a view of the cash register.

Steve gathers the largest beach towel he can find and squeezes down a cramped aisle to find a wicker basket. Together they cost double anything he might pay at a store, but his stipend from the US government piles up in an account month after month. He adds a pair of shorts and swings around to the front.

“Pardon me, but would you have any food for sale?”

The employee points. “Candy is past the sailboat ornaments.”

Not the best choice, but his metabolism treats doughnuts or root beer gummies the same as low-fat turkey burgers and kale salads. Steve grabs a few varied bags of jawbreakers, gummy bears, and caramels. He adds a personal serving box of wine that resembles a juice box and heads up to the register.

“ID please.” The employee doubletakes when he hands over his driver's license, and his eyes bulge out of their sockets.

Steve waits patiently for the surprise to pass. That's why his account barely gets touched. Purchasing things online removes the embarrassment of recognition.

“You're…”

“Yes, sir. I am.”

“You're in my store. A real hero is in my store.” The poor man fumbles ringing up the goods, one by one. His shoulders tremble. “Will you want a bag?”

“The basket will be fine, thank you.” A smile may not help ease the fellow's nerves but Steve tries.  

“Can I tell my mom I met you?”

“Of course. It's a free country,” Steve murmurs.

The transaction is over in a few minutes, no more. When he reaches the door, the rain fades away to allow a glimmering sliver of pale, watery light to fringe the cloud bank. He carries the basket by the handles, the towel slung over his wet shoulder, as he heads up the boardwalk. His hand runs over the railing, fingers barely skimming the chipped paint and grooved lines.

A red and white sign flashes brightly some distance away. _That's new_. So is the empty lot covered in weeds and salt-pummeled plywood. His thumb traces rust-flecked scratches left behind.

Steve lowers the picnic basket to his feet and waits.

* * *

 

Wind rushes in his ears as the cars slide to a stop. Bucky peels himself off the seat and flexes his knees, the locked bar groaning in protest. He pushes the padded steel tube aside when the gears disengage and steps up onto the platform.

The world heaves forward and his knees buckle, driving him down to the ground. He thrusts his arm out to catch the slippery pole. Fingers scrape parallel lines of white paint away. The descent ends before he falls and makes a fool of himself. After the literal and figurative dizzying heights of the day, a crash landing might only be appropriate.

“Whoa. Easy there, big fella.” The carney manning the rollercoaster keeps his distance. Concerned lines crinkle the crowsfeet around his dark eyes.

The earth wobbles and rises up to meet him. In spite of himself, Bucky laughs. “I haven't felt like that in a long while.”

“Give yourself a minute to get your land legs back.”

Bucky follows the gesture to a bench, flakes of paint tumbling like snow in his wake. The wet seat gets a quick swipe of his sleeve and he drops for a moment, feeling the aftereffects of a few minutes spinning and twirling around midair, defying gravity at breakneck speeds.

“Hell. That was incredible.”

“The Thunderbolt surprises damn near everyone.” The gentleman pats the car and wrenches a lever on a control panel sheltered from the rain within a hut.

“When a ride is almost twenty dollars, I sure hope so.” The easy grin and ready candor envelopes the brown-haired soldier, settling upon his features. Tension normally ratcheting his shoulders back ebbs, and he rolls his arms easily enough. Loose and at ease, he draws in a deep breath and almost laughs again.

How long has it been since he felt this calm with the world? Forever and a day. Not since the war. Wakanda offered sanctuary but nothing filled by the breathless euphoria of choice and loosened cares. Somehow the rollercoaster shook free a knot he never really knew existed, and the absence of the strain gives him a moment of pause. Sooner or later, the cares and tribulations will catch up with him.

Right now, he has no cares, no obligations.

The showers sweep east over Long Island, a curtain dragged back to show the world in its wet, refreshed glory. Metal struts dazzle like diamonds, and the blinking marquee winks in flashes of ruby. Bucky flips his hair back off his brow, a few damp strands clinging to his pale skin. Blazing scintilla dazzle his eyes at every flare of the blinking sign. Shielding his eyes with his hand pressed to his brow, he emerges from under the gate.

Someone waits by the entrance, staring out to sea. Blue and green-patterned fabric flows over his shoulder, so much like the bold Basotho blanket cloaks of the Wakandan border tribes. The wind ruffles the hem, lifting the corner to flap in a friendly wave. For a moment he stands back on the dusty red plain dipping into the broad curve of a river, the maize threshed for the season bundled at his boots.

A blink and the pattern dissolves into more regular shapes. Then the stranger turns his head from contemplating the ragged steel fringe of the wind-tossed sea, and everything slows down to a crawl.

 

* * *

 

“Where are we going?” Steve knows better than to ask questions he doesn’t want the answers to.

For the prior twenty minutes, he withheld the sting of curiosity. Every turn brings new faces and bodies pressed down the lanes. The summer heat radiates off the asphalt despite the sun setting two hours ago. He sweats under his undershirt and button down, and the thick, briny atmosphere burns in his chest. Not that he would ever let the strapping, broad-shouldered man leading him know.

“A little further,” Bucky says, distracted by skimming over the neon lights and blazing signs. They press up against a striped tent and skirt their way through a clutch of giggling girls wearing the same blue hair ribbon around their ponytails and powder blue cardigans.

Steve pays them a glance and a friendly smile. They titter and for his trouble, he hears the chuckle ahead of him. “Sorority girls, Stevie. Trust me, not worth bothering with tonight.”

Pink heat flares in his cheeks. Keeping up with Bucky’s faster stride is easier when the crowd pushes in, hobbling them both. He occasionally grabs the flapping canvas strap of the oversized knapsack riding low on Bucky’s shoulder, using the lead to guide him through tight spots.

“You still haven’t answered, Buck.”

“And you said you wanted this to be a surprise,” Bucky fires back over his shoulder, his face caught in profile. The sight steals the breath out of the blond’s lungs. Strobing orange and golden light play off the ramparts of those high cheekbones, carving out amber shadows beneath the absurdly handsome features carved to the likeness of a statue in the Met. Melting warmth saturates eyes so pale they resemble chips of Arctic sea ice.

Steve stuffs his hand into his pocket. He dare not trust himself to reach out and mirror the firm edges and the hard planes that delineate the squared angle of Bucky’s jaw to his chin. Besides, he conjures the same image whenever he wakes up in the predawn hours to a cocoon of heated sheets. They still share a bedroom, metal cots pushed up against opposite walls, and he lies still to hear Bucky’s even breathing when anxiety stirs him out of slumber’s cottony embrace.

The weight of his interest pulls Bucky full around. His unreadable expression melts around the edges when he smiles, anchored by that amused, playful wink.

“I did, didn’t I?” Steve regrets the decision to remain in the dark now. They must have walked halfway back to Manhattan by now, and not a bus or bench in sight offers precious respite. A hollow spot flutters in his chest when he breathes, a sucking hole that keeps stealing the air he needs so badly right now. His only other choice might be a cold dip in the sea.

“Come on, it’s not that much further.”

“I got this.”

Bucky steals an arm around his thin arm, pulling him close into a one-limbed bear hug. They fit together like they were carved from the same chunk of wood by a gifted carpenter, but the lion’s share of size goes to the strong, toned athlete and not the scrawny kid made from the remnants. Steve knows his best friend never thinks of them that way, but when they pass in front of a distorted mirror by the funhouse, he can’t help but notice the distinctions and extreme differences.

Their pace slows up by him stealing a look in the meandering sheet of glass. Enough that Bucky stops to avoid tangling their feet up and knocking the blond down.

“You gonna admire yourself all night?”

The shadows of the evening and fairy lights strewn over the tents and rides only partly conceal his embarrassment. “I’m not vain.”

“I know.” Warm breath stirs his long wheat-blond bangs. He needs to trim them anytime now, but he hasn’t found a free night between volunteering and studying and looking for some kind of part-time work to help pay the bills. Bucky’s laugh plays right over his ear. “Bit ridiculous, aren’t we?”

He blinks. “What?”

“You’re all torso and I have no legs.” Their reflection in the distorting mirror emphasizes the length of their chests and necks, shrinking their lower bodies to stubs mounted on overly thick shoes.

Steve manages to laugh. “I don’t need to see any more. This couldn’t be your surprise.”

“MIrror, mirror, in the dark, who’s the fairest in the park?” Bucky chants.

 _You are_. The shorter young man shakes his head, a smile fixed on his mouth. The enchantment fails to earn a direct answer. After several moments of silence, Bucky tosses his brown hair and rolls his eyes in an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s get going.”

They curve around to a row of food vendors hawking onion rings and French fries to eager masses. Vinegar and salt clog every breath. Steve raises his hand to his mouth, using the cover of his sleeve to keep the eye-watering acrid scent from permeating the fabric too far. He wants to groan when Bucky stops at a small van shilling elephant ears and deep-fried treats, and the dark-skinned vendor opens the side door to welcome his best friend with open arms.

They embrace like uncle and nephew, or at least family. Steve examines the man without directly looking at him. A few grease spots on his white apron form a triangle, and he has the physique to suggest physical labour. His face remains a mystery.

Bucky must catch him mid-look, and waves him close. “Stevie, come on over. Meet Jorge.”

Never shy around strangers, Steve approaches and offers his hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Jorge. Friend of the family?”

“I served with James’ father.”

The use of his given name sends the brown-haired man into a sigh, his eyes rolled for dramatic effect in an appeal that gets nowhere. Normally Bucky refuses to correct strangers and endures mistakes stoically. His teasing grin exhausts any likelihood of Jorge being some kind of stranger and the cook affirms the bond.

“Can’t come down here and see your truck without saying hi,” Bucky says.

“I will be here all summer,” Jorge says. “Business should be very good. I’ve already sent Leo to collect more flour and batter twice.”

Steve nods. “Lots of people down here as soon as the pier opens.”

“Give me a moment.” Dusting his hands off, Jorge heads back into the truck and comes out with a battered wicker basket with a folding lid propped open half an inch. A hint of blue and white striped terrycloth pokes out. “Don’t eat it all at once or you’ll have a stomach ache.”

“Yes, Mom,” Bucky says, taking the basket by the stout handle. “Thank you, Jorge. I owe you one.”

“After what your old man did for me, consider it a gift.” Jorge’s smile vanishes and his broad face turns solemn. He shakes his dark head slightly to banish any notion of a debt owed to him and Bucky doesn’t argue.

Old war buddies, Steve gathers without too much difficulty. George Barnes served his country well in the FIrst World War and gained the trust of other enlisted men. Sometimes they drift by the Barnes apartment, less now than when the boys were younger. Old habits fall into place, giving words of thanks quietly and not drawing too much attention to an act of service or an offer of help.

Both younger men wave. Jorge slips back into his truck to whip up the next batch of treats for paying customers descending from rides onto the boardwalk promenade. Bucky walks in silence, the basket slung over his right arm. He finally reaches back and clutches Steve’s wrist, setting off an electric zing running up the limb to detonate near his spine.

His tongue feels thick and his mouth goes dry. The blond youth raises his eyebrows, unable to trust in his voice.

“We’re close enough. I can tell you, I think.”

“Sure, Buck.”

“Last time, we never got a proper visit in,” Bucky says. “I thought I’d make it up to you.”

“You didn’t have to do anything like that.”

“No.” They reach a stub of the boardwalk rimmed in a plain rail, accosted more by seagulls than teens and pedestrians during the day. Bucky sets down the basket on the ground and pulls open the lid, revealing a rolled up towel. “But I want to.”

Steve can’t even find the words. Acts of kindness are par for the course around the Barnes household. He contributes his fair share and then some, always looking for ways to help out his best friends.

“See, no argument out of you. This ought to be a good plan then.” Bucky kneels and pulls out the towel, unfolding the unspooled roll. A good shake spreads out the terrycloth over the sandy boards.

He must look like a fool standing there, hands at his sides. Mouth opening, he shuts it on the unkind words that sound ungrateful even in his own head. Steve swallows them to try again. “I’m not really sure what to say.”

“I know we won’t have too long. Are you feeling okay?”

Okay? He feels like a firework shot into the night sky on the Fourth of July. Any moment he might burn up like a dud or burst into a thousand embers from a miraculous point of brilliant incineration, and he doesn’t know which one might be better. Steve nods, staring at the curve of Bucky’s back, the bend of his knee. So rarely does his best friend kneel, much less before his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? A picnic.” Bucky grins and then spreads his arms wide. “Don’t you know where we are?”

“Luna Pier,” Steve replies faintly.

The taller youth points to the opposite rail. There, despite the coat of paint, the light glances off the initials carved into the rail at the start of the season. Their place. His heart stumbles in its faltering gait and he needs a few seconds to recover, finding the words. Steve mouths, “Our meeting spot.” Maybe Bucky hears, maybe he doesn’t.

A picnic for him by their meeting spot under the light of the moon sounds like something out of his forbidden dreams, the ones that no teenaged boy ever considers confessing to their priest. Besides, he is not a Catholic. They attend the church down the street less these days, and Steve sends a silent prayer of thanksgiving and a plea for courage to the Lord.

Bucky’s silence serves as answer itself. He pulls out a flask of lemonade and a pair of turkey sandwiches, an orange laid beside them. A pauper’s feast by comparison to their regular meals. Steve widens his eyes.

“How can you afford this?”

The question lands between them heavy as a lead balloon. He winces as soon as he inquires, and jerks his head away to disguise the disgust and embarrassment at himself. Not his business to know what strings Bucky might have pulled to make a special moment for them, and not even his birthday at that.

“I saved up,” his best friend says. For that simple answer, Steve loves him even more. “Now you stop worrying about that and appreciate all my hard work, will you?”

They huddle together on the towel, the boards hard under their backsides. Sand grits the wooden promenade and slips between their boots and the terrycloth. Words serve him poorly so the blond says nothing. He unwraps the wax paper around the sandwich and hands it in offering to Bucky, following up by peeling the orange to reveal its rich citrus core to the eyes.

Halfway to separating segments of the juicy fruit, Steve lifts his head. Bucky hasn’t said a word or looked his way since they sat down. His hand shakes and closes around the orange rather than waste such a precious treat. Juice trickles over his fingertips, running down the valley between his knuckles.

“Hey.” Bucky starts and ends a sentence on that front.

The sea whispers its drowned soliloquy over the golden sand, lulling them into a restless silence. Shoulder to shoulder, they stare out at the speckled foam marking the crests of falling waves. Staying close to the ocean aggravates the litany of health conditions Steve suffers from. His constitution buckles under moderate environmental conditions, be it a snowfall or heavy rain. The congestion creeps after him.

He nods. Better to ease his best friend’s concerns than send Bucky into a fit of worry, packing them up as soon as they got to the meeting point. Juice runs sticky and thick between his fingers.

Bucky takes his wrist and lifts his hand, leaving Steve briefly goggle-eyed. He opens his fingers to reveal the orange, almost hesitant, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Never mind he can smoke and drive if he wanted to, or had the money. He still feels all of eight years old again.

Dipping his head, the brunet brushes the citrus-stained fingertips over his mouth. The breath rushes out of Steve in a faint, strangled sigh. Crystal blue eyes cannot possibly shift, held by planetary gravitation to observe the deliberate, slow press of warm lips to his digits. One by one, Bucky kisses them.

He swears his heart stops in his chest. Breathing no longer matters.

“Buck,” he whispers with the last dregs of air.

Hesitation pulls them into an impossible stalemate, not acting, hungry to act, urgent to move, unable to advance. Bucky acts on impulse, tipping his head closer. The logistics of their exposed position on the beach tumble over, dominoes cracking on their neighbours and taking them down. Steve does not care there might be people they know, or a police officer on his beat, someone to see and judge. They surely might get in trouble for being almost in plain sight. His name and reputation will not survive the coming inferno, and he instead cries out to burn.

A thousand times he imagined this very instance, never outside and in the open. They might hold one another in the dark, exchanging fumbling caresses. An embrace gone too long succors those needs he dare not admit. A gentle touch under the spray of a cool shower to inflame his passion is the best Steve expects.

Bucky gives him so much more. Their lips meet in a soft brush, the nearly innocent caress of a virginal girl upon her beau. Orange stains the frontier into terra incognita, delivering Steve headfirst into that unknown continent of desire and painful longing. Nothing will ever be the same again. Fifteen years of unnamed emotions explode into bloom, desert flowers in a downpour seizing the one opportunity in a century to show their colours and promise.

He kisses back, awkward and sweet and unflinching. The pressure shifts and grows by slow fractions, a glacial speed as far as Steve is concerned. He wants more, shifting his head to an angle, the better for Bucky to claim his mouth. Instead the brown-haired man savours the mingled flavour and runs his tongue across the divide, short and quick, a punctuation mark to a longer discussion.

Steve wants to die from the honeyed warmth overtaking him, a wave pulling him down. They draw back only because he runs out of air and can’t remember how to breathe, much less which way is up or down.

Fear twines around the uncertainty drawn on Bucky’s gorgeous face, the haunted shadows clinging to his eyes. He looks down over Steve from crown to toe, seeking for evidence of injury or wrongdoing from his transgression. The sandwich falls into his lap, forgotten, and he leans back slowly to build the separation between them.

Damn anyone being around. Steve reaches up and cups his face, fingers splayed wide over Bucky’s cheek and almost reaching his ear. He is a gangling youth next to his best friend, an Apollo or an Adonis straight out of myth, but the power lies completely in the blond’s hands. He feels the quiver in the muscle and the tremor in his best friend’s pulse. Bucky almost moans into his mouth when they start to kiss again, deeper and firmer this time, lacking all the bravado before.

Ten seconds, twenty, the world ceases to be at all. He leans in, pressing his chest into the firm cage of Bucky’s. A shift brings that strong, firm arm around his shoulders, pinning them together. No mistaking what that possessive gesture might mean, and that causes Steve to sigh his approval at finding the right place in the world.

Tinny music, thin and bell-bright, tumbles through the air. Their pulses synchronize with the elemental flow of the ocean, the languid hammer-beat of the waves mingled to the coppery thrum in their ears. Steve floats on a feverish sea not of illness’ making, but something purely else.

Eternity snaps on a silver thread. Bucky pulls his head back, reluctant to separate the distance between them.

Someone comes. Steve pulls his knees up. The strong arm around him slides away, a slow demise of the halcyon hour fading into friendship once more. Sorority girls laugh and warble their gossip while marching on past, feet light and spritely on the boardwalk, vibrations rumbling right over the aged wood.

Bucky gives that rueful smile, his lips reddened. Steve’s sting and he can only imagine they look the same, swollen and ripe and betraying exactly what happened.

He reaches for his sandwich without a word and the brunet never strays from watching his mouth. More than anything, he craves those warm arms around him and the firm pressure of a kiss again.

There will be more time for that. He has to believe it. They return to their picnic like nothing changes, but everything changed. Not for a heartbeat would Steve change it. It’s all he can do to focus on simple acts of chewing and swallowing without choking half to death.

“Told you I’d give you a good surprise,” Bucky murmurs, barely loud enough to breach the endless, sighing breeze.

 


	6. The Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Themesong: [Cesar Sampson - Nobody But You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8MyztgOTv8)  
> Major arcana: [Star](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/star/)

He emerges out of the silvery mire on a rainy afternoon, an apparition cast up by the foaming waves that caress the wet sand. The gods mean to tempt even the humble likes of Steve Rogers with this vision, a man sculpted from the midnight sky and deep woodlands.  

The breath leaves his lungs with the impact of a physical blow to the chest. Copper wings of his pulse clap in his ears. His heartbeat slams through his veins and his throat closes, a portal gone tight. Not that it would matter. Breathing ceases to matter altogether.

Slanting beams a uniform two inches wide lie between them in a diagonal row, a road paved in dreams and gold. The worn wood shines a pale bleached platinum. Raindrops bedeck the streetlamps lining the boardwalk in so many diamonds.

All that pales to the thump of boots, the compact movement. He knows every aspect of the man as well as his own reflection, and better. Bucky’s swift, furtive reconnaissance cuts him to the quick.

Already casing the surroundings for trouble hidden behind the wilting plywood barriers. Mysteries lurking out of public sight more likely amount to rusting scaffolding and overgrown weeds than concealed snipers. He holds no bitterness for the caution. It never pays to be too careful. Not in their line of work, their life.

The trial cannot erase who and what they are. Captain America as a symbol others seek to tarnish and tear down. The Winter Soldier as an emblem of terror and the long, shadowy arm of untouchable tyrants.

Steve hurts all the worse for the brunet approaching, slow and careful, laying down every step in deliberate effort to be heard.

As if he might run away at any moment from the one person there from start to finish.

“Steve?”

He whispers, as though afraid to break the enchantment of a wet, windswept stretch of coastline.

The word floats between them.

A broad shoulder lifting skews the towel. The wind rises and curls the end in a turquoise and cyan banner, stirring up lagoon hues to mock the washed out monochrome landscape. Steve thumbs the woven hem and leans back to avoid his makeshift toga from slithering all the way to the ground.

“Hey, Buck,” he says. His casual tone belies his squinting eyes, the firm grip on the metal rail. Hands stay where Bucky can see them.

Somber shadows wing over the brunet soldier's face. He turns briefly away to face the film of rain washing over eastern Long Island, veiling the world completely. Faint curves erode into a watery curtain stretching thousands of feet into the pearly cloud deck. Beads stream down the nape of his neck, disappearing under his collar.

Steve fears to guess how long Bucky wandered the streets in his flight away from Manhattan. Even now, journalists and law enforcement probably crawl through every record searching for a trace of him. No longer a criminal accused in the court of public opinion of crimes against humanity, James Buchanan Barnes needs to serve as grist for a different kind of rumour mill.

Not a word said in response to him tears at something deep and fragile within. Confidence in cobweb tatters, he pulls in a shallow breath. _This is how it's going to be?_

Over his dead body. He didn't come out of the ice to lose everything.

“Our old meeting spot, huh?”

Bucky reaches out for the rail. Seventy years of paint and maintenance replaced their long ago metal poles. Little from those days remains outside of postcards and museum pieces. Unconscious movements fill out the strokes, shape the curves, placing the tattoo of the past atop the most recent coat of paint.

Calling him out goes too far. It's answer enough. Droplets darkening his golden hair run down his brow and flank the strong aquiline ridge of his nose. Steve blinks and another bead captured on his lashes blurs his vision.

 _Say something. Say anything_. Thoughts cast into the void tighten his mouth. Lips tingle in the cool air, tasting petrichor and ozone of the passing storm.

The soldier looks down. Scarcely a meter separates them, well within arm's reach. He inhales deeply. The signature of a mossy vetiver, shaving soap, and sandalwood sweeps around him and transports him away from the seaside. A different intimacy fits into that textural masterpiece that invokes a winding lane framed in brick houses, slipping into a hidden park.

"What the hell kind of picnic is this, Steve?"

Bucky nudges the wicker picnic basket into Steve's ankle using the toe of his boot.

The collision unsettles the candies and snacks tucked away inside with plastic, recyclable plates and forks hidden inside. The blond takes up a defensive posture behind it, his towel finally collapsing in a heap atop the container.

The disbelief catalyzes a frown out of his frigid, immobilized features. His brows tick up an inch. Steve inhales sharply.

 "Language."

"Rogers, don't start."

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest. Another man's eye roll he conveys in that shift, his jacket doing little to hide the presence of the vibranium-laced prosthetic. A beat of silence drags out too long to affect amusement. He ventures away, reopening distance between himself and the continental force that is Steve Rogers.

Wake up to a backhanded slap in place of a kiss, and his cheek might sting less. Without a shoe or a bottle at hand, Steve improvises. Nat always gets on his case, but she isn't here to witness the moment going down in flames.

"Punk."

“Why are you here?” Bucky trails his fingers down the cold, wet steel railing.

A dozen answers burn Steve’s palate and not one manages to pass the barrier of his clenched teeth. His tongue presses to the hollow space in his palate, cutting off an answer. He gestures at the basket, lame as that is.

“Seriously, you got all of New York -- hell, the whole country -- to pick from and you come to this dump for a picnic?”

A shake of his dark hair casts droplets along his cheek and scatters more into the wilting height of his jacket collar.

“Wasn’t always that way.” Steve is barely audible over the foaming sea.

“No. But not much to see anymore,” Bucky says.

“Never was about the rides far as I remember.”

“Then why?”

“Check out that view.”

Steve stoops to recapture the abandoned towel and lays it out over the boardwalk. Two good snaps send an arcing susurrus of water over the sand, suspended opal drops landing well above the tideline. He smooths out a corner, perfecting the rectangle to its greatest dimensions. The basket anchors one end, leaving barely enough space for an adult to recline on. Certainly not someone of his proportions, but that isn’t the point.

The gossamer strands of rainfall cloak much of the island’s upper shore, and Bucky figures he might see the the highrise-studded skyline of the Financial District if he squints. Then again, he might be imagining the dramatic rise and fall of concrete thrust in a ponderous symphony against the melancholy sky.

“What view? It’s misty.”

“Don’t try and fool me. I know you’ve got an artistic soul under that rough exterior.” The chuckle warms the cool April afternoon. The blond kneels to unlace his boots, stripping the tight knots holding the uppers firmly to his shins. A far cry from the red leather Peter Pan boots that came with the costume back in the old days.

“Fine, what view? Low-anchored cloud, Newfoundland air, fountain-head and source of rivers, dew-cloth, dream-drapery, and napkin spread by fey; drifting meadow of the air.”

A boot kicked off lands short of the blue and green speckled towel, rolling on its side and collapsing. Steve pays its fate no notice, staring past Bucky’s shoulder, a faraway look in his eyes. His brows knit together in a labyrinth of pale gold wheat and contemplation. “Thoreau?”

“Got it in one,” Bucky says.

The other boot goes, leaving plain wool hiking socks exposed in their heather grey glory to the equally baffling, colourless world. Steve balances beside the rail as he strips off that last layer, his clean, bare feet smacking on the wood.

His best friend shakes his head, bemusement an accent for the season. “You can’t be serious.”

“Never more serious in my life,” Steve says.

“Having a picnic in this weather? Here?”

“No better place on Earth.”

If only he shared that unshakeable conviction, the world might look very different. Alas, Bucky lies subject to his own inner demons and foibles, the fissures riddled through him after a life in less than legal status performing the most heinous of acts against the very country and organization he fought and sacrificed and bled for. He finally takes the six steps needed to close the distance and drops down beside the blond, sweeping his hand over the damp towel beneath him to clear any excess water.

“You really believe that. Bit creepy out there.”

Steve shakes his head and breathes deeply of the petrichor and the brine. His eyes close to blot out the silver and tarnished golden landscape completely, giving custody of his wandering thoughts to the other senses. Sharp relief trickles through as soon as he deprives himself of vision. The taste of the wet air and the way water runs down the triangular point of hair at his nape leave him acutely aware of the cool temperature. Hair stands up slowly on his forearms in response though the serum prevents him from actually suffering a lowered core temperature.

For a few minutes, they simply exist there in a space without time, the thin barriers of past and future converging on the occasional squeak of Bucky’s boots or the rasp of a belt against a jacket.

“I was at the first of things. I will be at the last.” Steve shapes every word on his lips and tastes the raindew gathered upon the upper curve. “I am the primal mist. And no man passes me.”

“My long, impalpable arms bar them all,” Bucky finishes the stanza after a long, pregnant pause.

“You remember.”

“Mr. White was never going to let anyone leave that class without memorizing Sandburg.”

The blond man smiles at the faded memory plucked from long ago. “Seemed suitable for today.”

“Ominous choice. I liked the optimism of the fey in the sky,” Bucky says.

“Nothing to fear about mist after a storm. Rain washes everything clean.” Steve reaches over to the basket and flips the lid open to reveal the treasury of sweets and snacks buried in a nest of cheap napkins and swim trunks. The recyclable plastic cutlery sticks up at absurd angles, giving the impression of a psychedelic porcupine alarmed from its burrow. He fishes his hand through the packages, coming up with a small bag of Swedish fish.

Bucky catches the package midair, tearing open the lid. A saccharine residue rises, thick and heady. “Water can’t wash everything to fresh newness, Steve.”

“I never said it had to.”

“Never gonna be sparkly bright like it used to.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” Steve says. He pulls out a Coke bottle in the old-fashioned hourglass shape, thick and heavy. The lid pops off to the press of his thumb and he stows the punctuated cap in the basket. “Our memories matter. Sure, it may be a bit dingy and rough around the edges, but it wasn’t perfect back in our day either.”

Bucky snatches the Coke from him and takes a long, deep swig. The flavour sparks on his tongue, popping sweetness and acidity that quash his thirst for a time. “This is the real stuff.”

“That it is. Three bucks for a bottle.”

“Used to be ten cents. Highway robbery.”

The chuckle flows easier from Steve than before. He rolls the bottle between his hands, broad fingers dwarfing the slim middle curve. “See, that didn’t change for the better. But other things certainly got better. You have to admit that much.”

Wordlessly saluting with the other bottle of water plucked from the picnic basket, Bucky drains half the contents in one breath. Steve rarely gets in the mood to reminisce for long, and better to humour him than divert the conversation back to territory uncomfortable for them both. Briars already poke his conscience and holding them at arm’s length proves ever more difficult where Steve Rogers is involved.

The companionable silence goes only skin-deep, concealing deeper agitation. Fear of the unknown never inhibited Steve in the past and he decides to take the plunge. “Now what? You’ve got the verdict we wanted.”

Bucky lowers the water bottle. Plastic crackles in his grip and he stares at the grey bar of water along the horizon rather than facing down the one man able to change his fate with a gesture or a word. “Hadn’t really considered that far ahead.”

“You’ll pardon me for saying I find that hard to believe.”

“What, you think I spent my time locked up planning out a hundred different alternatives?” The soldier goes still and cold, eyes locked firmly ahead.

“The Bucky Barnes I know always has ten escape plans, two crazy ideas, and at least six harebrained schemes.”

“I’d like to meet that guy.”

Steve pokes him in the side, hard enough for his index finger to sink through several layers of damp fabric. “Don’t give me that guff, punk.”

“You keep talking big like that, Rogers, I’m going to make you eat your words.”

“Like to see you try.”

That old spark that ended in fisticuffs nine times out of ten on rough Brooklyn afternoons flares between them, nurtured by a direct stare and a cocky half-smile Steve used to wear as his default expression when facing down bullies.

Bucky hunches his shoulders, which is good as throwing his hands up in the air. “Fate preserve me from the decisions of madmen and fools.”

“Too late for that.” Steve comes up with a prepackaged sandwich of somewhat dubious quality, the best food possible in the off-season. At best his system can plow through the artificial ingredients and he ate much worse in the past. He holds out the wrapped sandwich as a peace offering.

Bucky raises a hand, shaking his head.

“Seriously now, we can’t have a picnic without sandwiches.” The look of earnest intentions and hope cuts so deep the soldier sighs and closes his hand around it. Steve grins. “See, that’s not so bad. I gave you the Italian. This egg salad might be styrofoam.”

Once upon a time, Bucky would be pushing food on Steve and reserving the least palatable options for himself: the bruised fruit, the dry heel of bread, the sour yoghurt. Tables turn in time. All things change. Some things never change. The blond watches his best friend from the corner of his eye, simply indulging himself in the proximity and flesh-and-blood proof of existence. This is no fever dream on a table, no banished illusion from the hellish nightmare over a year from losing the Winter Soldier and then rediscovering him in Vienna.

Bucky stares at the diamond of bread, meat, and vegetables mummified in plastic wrap. His shoulders slump several degrees. “You don’t have to do that.” The long pause answers the tacit inquiry strung out over the sighing murmur of the ocean. “Make sacrifices for me.”

“No, I don’t.” Steve warms to the subject, his bare toes flexing. The grain of the wood and the softer terrycloth make an interesting contrast. “No haves, just choices. I decided to because I wanted to.”

“Doesn’t feel right,” Bucky says. “I failed you enough times.”

“When did that ever matter? You think I should only help out folks who are perfect? Hate to tell you, but we have a real lack of perfection to go around.”

The man able to rip doors from vehicles and wrestle a Siberian brown bear hangs his head. His chin dips another inch towards the dark lapels of his jacket. Mahogany bangs tumble over his brow, naturally separated into thinner sections due to the earlier rain. It’s all Steve can do not to reach out and tuck the treacherous strands behind Bucky’s ear, revealing the strong profile again.

“I don’t think it’s good I stay.”

“That’s your choice too.” Much as it hurts Steve to say, he forces the words out. He and Natasha discussed this possibility so many times over the past months and years, ever since Bucky turned up in Austria. Sam’s counsel rings in his ears every time he thinks about the subject, the importance to let Bucky pick his path without any coercion. No matter how well intentioned, Steve knows he must let his best friend, his wingman, and his closest person to a brother -- more, and less than that -- go clear-eyed into a decision.

What he says sends Bucky up to his feet, stalking away from the towel. A couple yards off, he halts and stares out at the moody ocean. The restless state of the atmosphere reflects their emotional state too well, turbulent and unpredictable, changing too soon. The overturn of the conversation into another prickly silence turns thorns in on Steve’s heart, pressing until he bleeds internally from those wounds.

He forces himself to eat the tasteless egg salad sandwich. Smears of mayonnaise on dry cardboard and a thin saffron yellow paste with the consistency of lumpy glue and the flavour of weak buttermilk slowly diminish. Old lessons percolate to the fore. He bites and chews, careful not to breathe through his nose in case the rough elements align to make him actually taste anything. Bite, chew, swallow. An easy rhythm to follow rather than leaping to his feet.

“Why here?” Bucky says.

He grips the outer rail as he scowls at the Atlantic Ocean, blaming it personally for every aqueous caress on the shore or slap against a pier. _The ocean is a cruel mistress_. Someone wrote that once. He doesn’t think the author knew a damn thing about Steve Rogers, not that he is either master or lover or anything of consequence. Not any more.

Steve rubs his hand up and along his arm. The remainder of the sandwich lies forgotten beside his leg, safely out of the way if Bucky reclaims his small, vaguely dry territory on the towel again. “I had a feeling you might be here.”

“New York’s practically big as some European countries and you pick Coney Island.” Knocking his foot against the boardwalk sends a burst of noise into the air. A seagull on the beach keens in protest, taking to grey-tipped flight, wings furiously pumping for elevation. “How the hell did you know I’d be here, Steve?”

“I’m not monitoring you. No one is.” Best sweep that idea out of the way straight off. Steve has no appetite for the other snacks in the basket, and he sweeps the lid gently shut. “Lucky guess, I suppose. No, hear me out. This was our spot, always has been.”

Bucky’s haunted gaze rolls over him in an icy wave. Tension tightens every socket of his rigid body, leaving no slack in any limb or muscle. “That was seventy years ago.”

“Might as well be last week,” Steve says. “We always ended up out here when the going got tough.”

“So you show up with all this getup?”

The blond nods. Any further gesture seems excessive and flamboyant, undermining a simple truth stinging his tongue on every breath. “Seemed appropriate.”

“A picnic rained out. Story of our lives.” Bucky’s mirthless laugh goes down razor-sharp and keeps burning new trails on every swallow. Steve hates the sensation. His hand closes to a fist at his side, knuckles grinding under the bleached skin.

Bucky deserves so much better than this. Somehow a firebath of justice meant to purify him, destroy all the imperfections and burn away the old burdens. How has an innocent verdict not left him strong, whole, worthwhile? Was that not unreasonable to want for the one person who counts more than anything else? Steve might as well be shouting at the sky expecting answers from God.

Truth be told, he’s more than a little afraid of what the Lord might say.

Slumping against the rail, Bucky hunches over from the waist and gives the water his full attention, though he doesn’t see a single wave or bobbing speck of flotsam. Gone inward, his silence closes him down, erasing all the distinctions of emotion and outward expression. An old survival skill taught from his earliest days in Soviet Russia kept him alive then, and he might weather the grueling lack of response now.

“How many times did you try to give me a moment to remember?” Steve whispers.

He knows the other man can hear. Both of them have senses enhanced beyond the pale, much to Steve’s rueful embarrassment and Bucky’s sharp mirth.

“No. Don’t say that. Don’t go there.” The forlorn moan hurts to hear.

“Every time. You gave up everything to make something special happen.”

“That’s not the same,” Bucky whispers.

“I don’t see how it’s different,” Steve says.

“We were kids.”

“Adults too.”

The metal groans under Bucky’s clenched hands, the pressure of his body leaning unconsciously into the support to stay upright. “Stop it. You can’t tell me this.”

“I can’t return a much overdue gesture?”

“Steve, I never expected you to return it. Never had to. Besides, I failed at those moments as much as I have now. Think I would’ve read the writing on the wall, huh?”

“Shut up.” With a cutting gesture, Steve jumps to his feet. “I won’t hear you talk like that. Was it a failure when we made this our spot?”

Bucky shakes his head.

Steve advances one careful step at a time. Too fast and he might send his best friend bolting for the nearest exit, taking off down the boardwalk in a mad run. Approaching wild animals requires purpose and a palpable aura of calm. He tries to reflect the same, though the mad tumble of his heartbeat lashes his conscious thoughts under a sharp, stinging whip. “It mattered to me. You declared it was us together in the world, facing everything that came.”

“Just a bit of graffiti,” says the brunet, his fingers flexing. Metal creaks louder.

“Yeah, vandalism, defacing property, to anyone else. To me, you made a declaration that defined who we are.” Steve’s easy levity bubbles up and pops, a brief glimpse of needed amusement to ease the tension around their old camaraderie. “You came back here to our place. I don’t know why. Was it to escape or find your moral compass? To remember?”

Bucky shakes his head, face downcast, and the confusion dripping off him like the water off his drying jacket. “I don’t know, Steve.”

Steve swallows down a plethora of questions. He holds out his hands to his sides. “Did you want me to find you?”

“Yes.”

“Here I am.” What else can a man say when about to take a leap of faith?

Bucky's expression lies somewhere between pain and rapture. He says nothing.

“Why are we fighting?” Steve asks.

That gets him a savage punch aimed for him, maybe intended for chest or his face. The block ensures the flesh fist stops an inch and change from the bridge of his nose. A good thing. Steve likes the shape he inherited from his long departed, blessed mother.

She'd never approve of their scuffle. Her remonstrations ring through the years, shredding time paper-thin. _You be nice to that boy, Stevie. He'll watch your back through thick and thin, he will, if you give him the chance_.

They never sparred in their youth. Other boys tussled to figure out a pecking order in the Thirties and Forties, but not Bucky or Steve. About the only person the blond never fought with, his best friend, though he managed to grace every other alley and dead end with his blood from scrapping the bad boys, the mean kids, and the bullies.

“That’s fighting.” The snarl boils out of the leonine assassin separated by a breath from Steve. “See a difference?”

“You’re holding back.” A quick snap of Steve’s palms misdirects Bucky’s closed flesh fist over his shoulder, but the move shoves him up against the rail. Leap up for leverage or kick himself off the ropes, his choices are limited.

The bastard planned it that way. Steve interposes his hand against Bucky's chest to compensate for the hand gripping his shoulder.

“Normal people talk.” Bucky’s tight words vibrate with the strain.

“We're talking,” Steve says.

“Haven't had a real word in six weeks.”

“I needed to be impartial for your case.”

“Even _Clint_ visited.” Bucky rams his palm a little deeper into the tantalizing hollow along Steve's collarbone and the socket of his upper arm.

 _Is that what this is all about?_ The brunet running hot and cold he attributed to stress, but not this unexpected kernel of real pain harboured in plain sight. The fact he overlooked the real reason for Bucky’s distress detonates with the force of a bomb, sending Steve into shock. Colour drains from his face. He opens his mouth and tries for an answer, fumbling. “Buck. It was the legal strategy giving you the best chances of a positive outcome. The prosecutors would leap on every chance to undermine my credibility as any sort of character witness, especially if they could prove I was soft on you. Everyone knows our history.”

“So?” Bucky’s arm shakes.

“We couldn’t pin your freedom and innocence on the judge or any other justice assuming I wasn’t trustworthy, and somehow compromised to your side. Buck, I couldn’t condemn you to even one count of a crime by slipping.”

“That all?”

Bucky shoves him back and drops his hands, but before he can run, Steve grabs hold tight of his wet coat and shirt.

“Buck, your freedom is everything. The lawyers advised--”

“Fuck your lawyers.”

“Language,” Steve cautions again. “They're yours too. You might be thanking them for ushering you to freedom.”

“Right, because what's six weeks?”

Alone. Isolated. Steve knew the facts then as well as he knows them now but the fresh wounds tucked under the scar tissue start proverbially bleeding afresh. Forty-two days apart but for the courtroom, hardly the long duration of separation. He rubs his face with his hand. _You're a fool, Rogers._

He hangs his head. The mighty hero, brought low by simple truth, goes down to one knee. “Buck. Sorry isn’t going to be enough, but I’m saying it here, now. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The pain wrought in the brunet’s face finally comes out in naked intensity, and the sheer depth frightens the blond captain more than any threat on the battlefield, like nothing since Sharon broke the news of Peggy Carter’s death and the moment he crashed into the ice. Heaving for breath, Bucky shakes his head hard. “I went along with this miserable clusterfuck of a strategy because I had to. All these brighter minds telling me constantly we needed to separate you and I. Like anyone with eyes in their head wouldn’t see how we act around one another and look at one another.”  

“Look at one another?”

Bucky spreads his hands slightly. The rail lies stretched out between them. “Thought you picked this place for a reason. Surely you remember.”

“No way I could ever forget.” Even that much sounds imperfect. Steve swallows. His face turns up in the pale silvered light of the afternoon. “Come back to me, Buck.”

Bucky's brows lower, sharply delineating the pained mask worn on his face. “Why?”

“Is it too late to make good on everything that life interrupted?”

“Everything.” A mirthless laugh breaks over his lips. Bucky's face shines almost as though he weeps. “Built on memories.”  

“Never just memories to me, Buck. You know that. We swore this is our place.”

“Time moved on.” The soldier clamps his mouth shut and bends for the towel, brushing it over his face. A fair sight less damp than his clothes or his skin, the fabric offers some relief.

Steve seizes on the pause. He pats himself down and only comes up with a pair of keys. Flipping open the fob, he starts scratching letters fresh into the paint, digging a bit too deep. Layers of orange and red peel away to bare the raw steel.

**S.R.**

“What are you doing?” Bucky throws the towel back atop the picnic basket.

“What's it look like?”

“Vandalism, defacing private property, graffiti?”

Another line sliced into the steel Steve slashes lengthwise, sawing down for a cleaner trough in the paint. He brushes away the chips of paint.

“What, you're trying to get a record? That won't fix anything tonight,” Bucky mutters.

“I have faith it will.”

**J.B.**

Steve steps aside and slides his keys back into his pocket. The picnic basket lies at his feet and he stoops to reclaim it and the discarded towel.

Bucky's lips press in a white line sharp against his complexion. Unreadable depths shadow his gaze, his whole expression something nearly foreign to the one man supposed to know him in all his moods.

“Even now?”

“To the end of the line.” With a nod, the blond scuffs his heel on the boardwalk. “This isn't the end, not by a long shot.”

“You weren't there,” Bucky says.

“No, I wasn’t. And I’m going to regret that for the rest of my life.” A very long life. How long, not even Steve knows. Erskine left no notes and manuals, and he attributes that tightening in his belly to idle contemplation he has to make up every day to Bucky for the next century. A price he gladly pays, so long as that means Bucky stays with him.

Smirking, the assassin waves his metal hand in the air. “You should.” That simple declaration sends Steve’s heart plummeting in his chest. “Ross makes for terrible company. Barton's not much better.”

“I'm sorry, Buck.”

“You went back for Wanda and Sam. Mid-ocean, a forbidden facility. I was two miles away.”

Steve drops the basket and closes the distance at a lope, not even stopping when he runs the brunet down. Arms thrown around those wide shoulders crush Bucky to his body. Their limbs close the circle, a firm hand resting between his shoulder blades, warm fingers somehow finding space to bracket the rampart of his cheekbone.

“Give me a lifetime to show I'm sorry.”

Bucky’s muffled reply cuts deep. “Why should I forgive you, punk?”

Steve laughs into that dark hair. “Because who else we got but each other? Stay. Stay with me.”

Without a word further, he seeks Bucky’s mouth and covers it with his own, drinking every salt-dark tear and fresh promise from their fountainhead. His tongue flickers across the closed seam, cajoling a response, calling in the ageless language of lovers. The brief resistance holds firm against him before the warm lips part, the brunet meeting him with equal passion and desperate urgency.

They drown in one another, pulled to their knees. Desire capsizes Steve and he drags Bucky to the sandswept stretch of boardwalk. Fingers curl in dark hair, seizing a handhold to prevent anyone from cleaving them in twain again.

“I can’t be without you,” Steve whispers between the exchange of kisses, hunger tempered by that terrible stroke of unquestionable, inviolate truth.

Hoarse and husky-voiced, the reply is devoid of Bucky’s usual slyness. “Where you go, I go.”

“Then don’t go at all.” Steve presses his brow to the brunet assassin’s. Why does he feel like the one released from the curse of a condemned man, instead of the true prisoner let go this very day? “Stay.”

“Always?” Bucky whispers.

“Always.”

 


	7. The Hanged Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve get into a fairly nasty scrap with hooligans at Coney Island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [Hanged Man](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/hanged-man/)

_1938._

“You hear that?” Steve cups his hand over his ear to better amplify the disruption. The water gurgling around upright wood pilings drowns out the background noise in a liquid murmur.

“You must be the only guy this side of Brooklyn incapable of enjoying a moonlit stroll on the beach,” Bucky says.

“We aren't exactly walking.”

The rueful note buried under the wide smile sticks out like trumpets missing the conductor's cue. Steve hunches back against the piling, using its sea-softened breadth for protection. His bony shoulders scuff the peeling wood when he tamps down on a cough.

Abandoning his seat on the sand, the brunet shuffles on his knees. Slipping his arms from the sleeves, he thrusts out his bundled jacket. “Here, take this.”

“I can't. Buck, it's freezing out here.”

“You need it more.”

Bucky shakes the bundle to entice the blond to take it. He sighs and acquiesces as gracefully as his dearly departed mother taught him, hugging the coat to his chest. At least when he coughs, Steve enjoys that scent of leather and sandalwood so inextricably linked in his mind with his best friend.

The jacket proves at least six sizes too large. He shrugs it on anyways. The neckline hangs on him like medieval stocks and the sleeves need a constant war to keep them over his wrists. But the body warmth leaves a welcome signature, cocooning him in an intangible envelope holding the chill at bay.

‘You really sure this is a good idea?” Bucky raises aloud they both think at multiple points during the week.

Steve reaches over to squeeze his arm. “Wouldn't change it for the world.”

“This damp is no good for your lungs.”

“Staying inside is no good for me, either,” Steve says.

He can almost forget the bandages wrapped around his knees and the ugly array of purple bruises limned in sickly mustard running up and down his shins and forearms.

“Ten more minutes.”

The wind ruffles Bucky's brown hair when he ducks out from under the pier to check the advancing hour. Neither of them sport a wristwatch. Rides work perfectly well to measure time roughly. Two full turns around the spinning swings covers about eight minutes. He checks the thin line, marking a girl in a jaunty red cloche cap as his gauge.

“We don't have to turn in so fast.”

Even as he protests, Steve chokes on the pressure in his lungs. The ache of the cold already brands his joints. Sitting huddled in the shadow of the limbless trees planted in the Atlantic sand gives him an illusion of the normal, being just another guy having a midnight picnic, a weekend getaway.

Bucky ducks back under the pier. Scrambling across the dry sand kicks up sparkling clods into the air. The boardwalk stands far enough above them he can almost reach his full height. Urgency drives every action, sliding over the sand to scoop up the battered canvas rucksack. A jar chimes against a spoon with how he goes about jamming goods in willy-nilly.

“C'mon, we gotta go.”

The contrarian approach stings enough to plant Steve's backside against the wood, his arms hugging his torso. “No. I'm not leaving.”  

Bucky's face glows in the moonlight breaking through slats in the boards overhead, the dramatic uplift of his cheekbone enhanced to critical degrees. One frosty eye silvers, nearly colourless. He pauses only for a second, then seizes the dish towel standing in for a proper picnic blanket.

“Don't argue with me,” he snaps.

The ferocity behind the low, driving growl pushes Steve back up against the wooden piling. His throat closes around a protest and the colour fades from his expression. The furor of Bucky packing up grows even faster.

“You go first. Like we planned,” Steve says.

“No time. We gotta move now.” Bucky never meets his eye, scouring the seaside retreat called their own for the past twenty minutes. A few sweeps of his boot drowns out the unfinished fire pit, erasing evidence where they stretched out together instead.

The pain wounding those clear blue eyes and turning down Steve's mouth stretches his face tight. He staggers up to his feet slower than his best friend wants. The taller man grabs his thin upper arm and hauls the blond upright, then pushes him along the shady corridor of pilings and crossbeams.

“What's going on?”

“Your noise. It's a fight.” Bucky herds him through a narrow divide where the pier melts back against the boardwalk flanking the front of Coney Island.

Crawling over piles of driftwood and rotting seaweed, weaving like explorers of old past jumbled trash, they cover a quarter of the distance when the drumbeat of war rolls over their heads. Steve ducks low, hands instinctively moving to cover Bucky's exposed back. The brunet needs no vocal warning to stop in place and shelter against one of the shorter struts. Bent nearly in two, Bucky reaches for the wood for support.

Footfalls clatter after them. Steve appreciates how the crowd on the line at the horse races must feel, the jarring ripples rolling through his teeth and jaw, detonations settling low in the pit of his belly.

Ten, fifteen people he counts, headed on the same path they take. Surprisingly few shouts herald a different kind of fox hunt in progress, the kind where the quarry is no noble stag, but a person. More than likely a kid down on his luck, crossing the wrong folk, wearing a threadbare sweater or talking in a heavy Slavic accent where the preferred mode is Italian or Irish.

Steve creeps out from the limited cover the boardwalk provides, and as soon as he passes, the horrified look on Bucky's face takes its toll. Pale eyes wide and the gesture to come back owes its origins as much to fear for Steve as fear of the pack. Solitary wolves do badly against a group in any quarrel, but that makes no difference.

“What are you doing?”

The age-old question of James Buchanan Barnes where one Steve Rogers is concerned. Noble instincts overtake good judgment, and the blond is off.

Amazing how one skinny kid raised on the streets of Brooklyn can prove so difficult to catch. Eyes roll heavenward and launch a futile prayer before Bucky heads out, forsaking his own shelter. Not that he ever had a choice in the matter.

He promised to his own pa he could keep an eye on Stevie, and his word is his bond. At least where his word covers the rapscallion who should know better than to involve himself in a fight.

“Steve, no,” he groans.

How can twenty or thirty footsteps matter so much? Life hinges on incremental distances. The difference between making it to shelter from the rain or securing a seat in a lifeboat before the ship goes down.

There goes the familiar blond head into the mass of onlookers while two big teenagers beat on someone screened by a thicket of legs. Muffled grunts announce the beating inflicted on their unseen victim. Steve launches himself with a disapproving noise onto the back of the nearest person, pulling at his arm, pummeling the side so his target turns.

Classic move, one that Bucky himself taught him ages ago. Giving the victim a path to run is noble. Bad odds, he counts them up in his head.

Eight for him, two for Steve, one for the whelp curled up with hands covering the back of his neck and dirty, torn-up arms in front of his face for protection.

Bucky doesn't need to know who the kid is, why they are here, and the date the next big movie opens at his favourite cinema.

They go too far when a pipe slides out from someone's sleeve. Steve yelps when he takes a punch, dragging his loafers over the sandy boardwalk to pull attention from the kid he wants to rescue. One waving pipe is all the brunet focuses on, and he slides into their midst, an avenging angel in a white shirt rolled up to his biceps and tie loosened.

A trio know how to fight, by the looks of it, and they round on him. The numbers may be poor but he has a nasty left hook practiced for years and anger on his side. What could be a fair match ends when he plants his fist into the nearest man's jaw and feels a satisfying loosening of teeth.

The punch knocks the youth down and a hard kick drives him into the air. Both others look behind their fists at this newcomer. The pipe spins out of reach.

“Yeah, you jellybeans just made a mess of it.” Bucky blows out a hissing breath through his teeth. He can't afford to worry about Steve in the heat of the moment.

Two angry young men, not much past twenty, confront him. In their lean faces and hard eyes, hunger masquerades as rage. Hate fueled by the long, difficult years of the Depression poisons them, driving them to turn their helplessness on another more vulnerable target. Here, a silent young man curled up in a ball to protect his vital organs. Another time, possibly Steve in a back alley, behind the watch repair shop, or in front of their house. Maybe they would have ganged up on Bucky, had he no steady meals or growth spurt at fourteen.

The man knows these common features. They're all poor kids at heart. The boy defending his best friend never hesitates. Slipping through a tentative punch, Bucky slips under his guard. The deke isn't half bad. Anyone else with more practice against larger opponents might have a chance of really hurting him, but the tall brunet shrugs off the hit and throws a hard one-two into the guy's chest.

To his credit, his opponent stays up. Bucky grits his teeth another nasty jab at his kidneys that he barely catches on his hip instead, turning at the last moment. Anger blazes a hot course through his belly and he tastes iron, finding the rhythm of the strikes. Block and weave, he gives the two tough reason to worry. They manage a few hits, nothing severe.

The longer the fight goes on, the hotter they get and sweat runs down their faces. The mistake comes the moment the unhurt guy ducks to grab the pipe. Bucky finally loses his temper. With a grip on the scruff of the youth he punched, he bellows and flings the smaller young man into his friends where they circle around Steve and their last victim.

The collision more than takes the wind out of their sails. Three go down. His shoulder screams and he aches in funny places up and down his back, but better to end a fight quickly than allow trouble to bubble out. Steve is up against the boardwalk rail, bleeding from a cut to his brow and scrappy as a rat. He snaps and uses a bench to keep some of them at bay.

It's not much of a shield, but the bench gives some protection. Long enough for Bucky to lunge in. The two remaining guys upright go down quick to a well-placed kick and another smack that splits his knuckles open.

Steve winces in sympathy for the blood finally appearing. The thug haranguing the kid on the ground takes a look around and finally runs, bolting for relative safety up Surf Avenue where cops manage a beat.

“Buck, behind you!” Steve cries.

Bucky swivels, wringing out his hand and prepared to punch the nearest thing that moves and doesn't have a mop of sweaty blond hair.

 _Aw shit, the pipe._ His thoughts turn to smoke and agony.

 

* * *

 

The cadence of violence plays the same, no matter the country, and the universal music draws out expected reactions from the audience in New York, Buenos Aires or Paris.

Cramped and hurting, the beaten boy unfolds himself. He pats himself down with shaking hands, torn sleeves revealing shreds of skin already turning pink and red as far as Steve can see.

“You're real dumb, you two.”

“You're welcome.” Steve jerks his head, wetness running over his brow. He wipes it away. “Get out of here.”

“I saw you under the pier,” the boy says.

Blood runs cold in his veins. The wet breeze off the ocean robs the blond man of what miniscule amounts of heat he can generate. He pulls the leather coat around his thin shoulders, a talisman against any trouble.

“You're mistaken, kid.”

The boy glares with the false ferocity of a cornered puppy. “No one does anything good at midnight. You oughta be thankin’ me.”

Long moments pass when Steve peels his tongue from his palate and conjures a response suitable to his age and maturity. A good portion of him wants to take the boy by the shoulders and shake sense into him. “You better get home before anyone wonders where you were.”

“I'm not saying thank you!”

The boy's show of bravado is far too much for the blond, and he must look a fright. A few steps out from around the bench sends the kid running as fast as his too-tight shoes can carry him. Slapping thuds peter out long after the gloom of night swallows him up.

Four guys laid out on the boardwalk groan or plain don't move at all, slumped like fat seals in the _National Geographic_ magazines. One of the bigger guys, probably a leader of the hooligans, dragged off a victim to Bucky's mean hook.

A sigh bleeds off his lips. Steve lacks the size or strength to do the same, and his constricted lungs bubble in a bad way. _No chance of another moonlit stroll tomorrow night. Or maybe ever_.

Bucky can't be asked to pay a toll of their illicit tryst, not when the cost is blood or censure. The brutal reality lies out there before him, his best friend lies out cold on the boards. Curling waves taunt him, curling freely along the beach, frolicking with an immeasurable strength at their disposal.

Shaking hands hook under the bigger man's armpits and strain. “You're heavier than you look,” he mutters.

Heels scud over every bump. Steve groans while he hauls Bucky's dead weight, and he barely makes it a few yards before exhaustion forces him to halt and recuperate. Their progress would hardly impress a snail. To make matters worse, blood runs down Steve's face into his eyes and joins the stinging sweat that transforms his face into a gladiatorial mask, something barbaric and savage, scoured by a fresh coating war paint.

Panting and a litany of guttural noises magnify the loneliness. They pull away into an alley where ducking into a vacant booth seems like a lesser sin than staying in plain view. Steve knows he could never explain away their condition to a cop. _Yes, officer. We were just sitting here on this bench to recover from tripping_.

Good way to be arrested for public drunkenness, hooliganism or worse. Steve forces the unlocked door open and thanks whatever teenager forgot to perform their closing duties properly. Squeezing Bucky in under the counter and putting his rucksack up against the wall like a pillow takes him too long, long enough for someone to start sweeping the boardwalk with a flashlight and shout.

Fear pushes Steve. He drags what few objects he can find to cover up Bucky's unconscious body, wedging the stool close to the door and sticking the closed sign up against the vacant window. The shades are down.

Scribbling a note on the pad left by the employees, he tears off the paper. The tube fits inside Bucky's sock well. Coppers check shirt and pant pockets, Steve figures. Too dangerous to risk Bucky waking up wondering where he went, if he is safe. The best he can do on short notice ought to be noticeable.

“I know you're out there!” shouts the beat officer.

“Sounds straight out of a movie,” he whispers to Bucky.

Now or never. A split second allows Steve a final glimpse of his best friend's face in shadows, silhouette fading into the darkness pooled in the hut. He nudges the door shut quietly as he can, and creeps away.

Every step goes through him in waves of fire-bright guilt. His teeth fit to crack from the pressure of gritting them, jaw aglow. Misery hunches Steve into an old man's bend, and he can’t swallow around the stone in his craw. Guilt tastes like blood and smells close enough to leather to make his stomach nauseous.

 _Keep going. One more step. One more_. The police officer's beam strafes the boardwalk and paints up the buildings, like any criminal might hunch on the rooftop, laughing gargoyles mocking law enforcement. No laughing now, Steve forces himself to walk fast as he dares, away from the only soul in the world he would go through fire for.

Guilt prods him as hard as a knife or a fist. His path sends him washing up onto Surf Avenue where cabarets and nightclubs glow, ships alight under blinking white bulbs. He eases his way into the smallest joint with a light on in the window, a place that might make fifteen cents stretch.

Few people in the tired diner equate a safe refuge. They look up at his bloody face and the cook emerges from the kitchen, drying a chef's knife, message plain.

Steve swallows. “Evening. May I have a towel, please?”

The waitress looks him over. Ancient judges in Greek myth probably seemed gentler to the accused. He's on trial for something nameless and ancient. “What're you doing out so late, son?”

“Troublemakers by the bus stop.” Not wholly a lie, it comes out halting and slow. A punch to his ego, it's not the first time he ducked his head. “Roughed me up.”

“Damn Italians again,” the cook says.

“Bad for business.” The waitress slings a clean, wet cloth and scoops ice out of the box. “Sit down at a stool and let me see. That cut looks nasty.”

“I'll buy a cup of coffee. Not trying to trouble you any.” Steve settles onto the stool. His back curves and shoulders droop, the weight of the leather coat heavy on his aching body.

The waitress frowns. _Dot_ , reads her nametag. Bright red hair, the hue only attained by beauty products, flows around her in a curly cloud. She looks familiar in a vague way, a bit actress in a long ago film, and that somehow comforts him.

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” Dot says.

“Maybe soup?” He should have enough. The coins in his sock bite into his heel. Pain flares his nostrils when she dabs over the cut on his brow.

The baby powder scent wars with grease and coffee. Dot wipes off the worst of the blood, mouth permanently set in a downward curve. Her handiwork will not be interrupted by an order or a regular muttering about coffee, her retort sharp. “Can't you see I'm busy? Wait, Carl.”

Somewhere out in the world, Bucky waits. He might be awake or halfway to jail in the paddy wagon, along with thugs roughed up by life and mean as a result. Here Steve sits, being tended by a waitress too good for one in the morning. A warm cup of coffee pressed into his hands keeps the chill of the wet evening at bay, but not the bone deep cold.

“Those Italians cause all kinds of trouble. You're not the first to run afoul of them. You sound a bit Irish.”

He blinks at Dot, eyebrows lifting. The ripe pink of his skin attests to her thorough scrubbing, and she dabs the cut with a foul, aseptic ointment strong enough to bring tears to his eyes. “Good guess. Oof, that's strong enough to fell an ox.”

“You won't fall ill from it.” Dot seals up the cream and sets it back in an open first aid kit. “Now then, drink up. Nothing coffee can't fix.”

“Nothing but a broken heart,” he says, distant and distracted by the empty street outside the front windows of the diner. Not a person there to come home.

Dot shakes her head, wiping her hands on her apron. “Of course. A dame.”

Steve hasn't the heart or will to correct her. Better for them all to think that.

The cook pokes his head back out the open doorway to the kitchen long enough to regard the cleaned up urchin washed up on his shore. “You got arrangements to get home safe, son?”

“Sure do, sir.” His smile falters. “Ride's still a nickel.” Finishing up the coffee, he swallows the hot, metallic brew right down to the dregs.

“You keep that dime,” the cook says. “Dot will have my head if I let you pay.”

The act of callous compassion burns acid into the white lie that opened the door. Steve's pained smile twists the small bruises in his cheeks and his head throbs the whole time. “Thank you kindly. I don't deserve it.”

“I'd say someone beaten about by the world needs it more than most,” the cook replies.

He cannot find words to argue the point. Pulling his coat close, the blond settles onto the stool again to wait.

 

* * *

 

Half-past two marks an hour of ill intentions and bad deals. No one rightly wants to be awake. Bucky made six harried steps before the scratching against his wool sock provided any direction during the chaotic mess of fear when he came to.

No Steve, no light, and a hell of a goose egg forming on the back of his head. The sour conclusions still roil his gut as he refers to the crabbed scribble by sodium light from a streetlamp.

_Safe. Finding coffee, Surf Ave. JB+SR_

Smudged lead acts as his lodestone, carrying the limping brown-haired man past one darkened storefront after another. He clutches onto the scrap of college-rule paper, every bit as sacred as a papal indulgence, holding his bloodied fist close to his chest where the damp aggravates cuts and bruises over his knuckles less.

A lack of pedestrians to size him up and find his boyish good looks lacking gives him the only advantage for the late hour. Part of him wants to curl up on the nearest bus home until he reaches the familiar byways and twisting lanes of Brooklyn, the closest thing to home turf in the five boroughs. The sheer idea of climbing the stairs up to the apartment flips his stomach, and Bucky has to stop for fear of vomiting into the gutter. He clutches the note, crumpling the middle, and jackknifes from the waist.

Long, deep gasps fill his lungs and his unsettled gut rebels at the violence inflicted over the night. Back muscles twitch and twang, long strands being played by a fiendish invisible maestro. Another spasm overwhelms him and Bucky staggers forward.

 _Better this than lying unconscious on the boardwalk or lying in the surf. Steve’s waiting. Can’t leave him waiting._ The dogged determination required to put a boot in front of the other pushes him on. Passing bright posters advertising shows and the newest exhibition on the promenade, he halfway staggers up to the only pool of light.

Someone rushes out through the open door. Streaks of sweaty, matted hair poke out in all directions. Through the disrupted hay thicket, Bucky recognizes a few familiar features, the wide eyes showing white around the rims.

 “Hell’s bells, Barnes, what happened?” Steve calls out far too loudly. The noise assaults Bucky’s ears and he winces, a deep groove carved along his brows.

“Could ya keep it to a dull roar?”

“Sure.” They should collide, their paths aligned, but they don’t. The blond halts, slithering out of the oversized leather jacket that Bucky trusted to his care back on the beach a million years ago.

Heavy and warm, the coat goes on slow and rough. Rickety fingers slowly force their way into the sleeve, and Bucky’s arms gain a palsied shake he leans into the diner’s exterior wall to suppress. Too many minutes slide by while he covers up the rough state of his shirt and assumes a bit of anonymity out of sight of two diners and the redheaded waitress minding a nearly empty counter.

Steve tugs on his elbow. “Come on, get out of the street.”

An unequivocal shake of his head covers little distance and sends the world spinning wildly. The wall rises up to meet him and sweeps him up into his concrete embrace. Bucky slumps at a sharp angle against the wall and slithers down.

“Bucky!”

“I want to go home.” He coughs out a wet laugh. “Barring that, I’d give my left arm for a cup of coffee.”

Through the wavery plate glass window and crooked, smoke-yellowed blinds, the cook joins Dot the waitress. He wipes down a frying pan, rather than his chef’s knife, a step down on the threat scale. Acutely aware of their heavy stares, Steve squeezes in closer to the taller man without touching him. Weals pepper his arms and lacerations crisscross up his arms, unseen under his shirt for now.

“Let’s worry about home after coffee. You aren’t going to charm any broads looking like that,” Steve says.

Bucky barks a hoarse laugh run over by too much rough-grit sandpaper without a care for the finished product. “Not really an issue anymore, is it?”

The blond doesn’t share the laugh. He loses his grip on the pinch of the cracked leather sleeve, oiled brown hide slipping between his nerveless fingers. The palpable tide of a pale look rushes over him and retreats again. The footsteps shuffle after him, sole dragging a hint that Bucky favours his right leg over the left.

“You have to take better care of your head. At least your face.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. You care how my face looks?”

Smug delight hides underneath a veil of wisecracking weariness, Bucky’s first defense in all matters. Encouraging him is only bound to make the situation worse.

“Not really. I just don’t want anyone scared off by that ugly mug of yours.” He rolls his eyes. “Can we go inside and get warm? Let’s have a cup of coffee. Bet we could pool our change and share some fries.”

Steering the conversation into normal tidings, the blond eases a little closer to the diner door. Their future together balances on eggshells and candy floss, fragile dreams increasingly tarnished to a distant, hazy grey by a bitter reality dawning on Steve. He doesn’t want to wake up and face the clamor left in his head by an ungrateful kid spitting words in his face.

“Not even a face my own best friend could love.” Rawness bleeds along Bucky’s gaze, his mouth twisted into a rictus.

 _That’s not it at all. Don’t make me say the words._ Steve bites his inner cheek and swivels, punching the wall. Fresh white pain boils through the scratches and bruises capping his knuckles. It hurts, a clean source of sensation better than trying to grapple with half-heard sentiments and veiled innuendo cutting open fresh wounds.

Clutching his upper arm, the taller man gapes. His mouth opens to allow no coherent words out, sound wispy and thin. Two steps forward and Bucky grasps Steve’s arm.

"Steve, really. You're like those dumb birds that keep bashing themselves against windows."

"I'd be fighting someone my own size for once," Steve says.

"Is that what this is about?” The coat slides open, revealing a patchwork landscape of dirty smudges and bloodstains left by the scuffle. Bucky cocks his head. “Seems to me _you_ rode into a fight with ten guys. You're too short to be a bully, anyways."

Safe footing in familiar territory gives a faint taste of confidence. He bristles, straightening up to his full, unimpressive height. Steve clenches his fists and pulls them up, ready to box with shadows and bad ideas. "Did you call me short? James Buchanan Barnes, them's are fighting words."

"In your dreams, Rogers.” A rough finger pokes Steve in the chest. Bucky grimaces. “Even though I'd be able to hang you from a clothesline like Mrs. O'Hara's wet sheets, I'm going to be… magnanimous."

"Using big words, ooh."

"Yeah, read it in the newspaper,” Bucky says. He delivers another poke into a bruise, and Steve’s grin flares painfully.

“I’m not impressed by you.”

“Yeah? Well I’m pleased as punch by you, so what do you gotta say to that?”

They keep this banter up, Steve might even convince him to have crackers and soup before they trudge home to sleep past noon. Rising any closer to dinner time and Bucky might miss his shift at Camp Lehigh, and a job is too valuable in the current state of affairs for either of them to treat lightly.

He punches Bucky on the shoulder, more of a light cuff much devoid of force, speed, or strength. Knuckles glance off the bony knob of his upper arm. They both grimace and squelch the grunts and choked laughs leaking out past clenched teeth and white lips.

“You’re crazy,” he tells Bucky. “You know that? Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Think you’re just afraid I’ll give you a good whooping, too.”

“I wasn’t the one lying on the boardwalk.”

“I’d like to see how well _you_ take a pipe to the head.” He’s all grins, sharp and bright, the dawning moon white against his rather dishevelled appearance.

Steve scrubs his face with his hand, the pungent cream smeared on his fingers and down the side of his hand. The strong stench of medicine makes his eyes water again. “You keep doing that, you’re gonna be death of me.”

“I don’t plan on stopping,” Bucky says. His blithe grin widens, tugged at the corners. Without laughter, the only choice remaining would be tears. They made it this far into a ruined date, why not try to make the best of it? Steve hardly blames him for that.  

“Great. Let’s get moving or else I’m going to keel over right here on the sidewalk.” The blond man raises and drops his shoulder and tugs weakly on his collar, the fabric stiff with dried blood. The wounds to his pride and heart are far less visible.

 

* * *

 

**2018.**

Breaks in the cloud cover throw faint, purifying light over the steel ocean. Seagulls wheel above the disturbed water, occasionally plunging to hunt the flotsam. White and grey darts shot from the sky, they disappear in a splash, and reappear with a beakful of fish. Such a peaceful, mundane scene happens hundreds of times in a lifetime.

Steve takes comfort from sharing in the common experience. A mundane view that changed little from his childhood unfolds before him, calm and beautiful. A welcome distraction for a few breaths while his mouth tingles still from the force of a kiss inflicted on him by Bucky.

If he closes his eyes, he still feels the pressure forming his mouth to the supple shape of Bucky's. Instinct guides him to run his tongue along his lower lip. The bruise is only imaginary, the serum erasing any traces.

Beside him, the brunet assassin gets to his feet. He is silent in his retreat as in all things. Still remarkable to Steve that Bucky consciously attempts to make a sound, rather than suppressing the noises he might make. His withdrawal leaves a palpable hole that waves and wind cannot fill.

“Be right back,” Bucky says. A promise of return, soothing the discomfort of separation. Not much of a salve, but Steve appreciates the thought.

Once more his gaze turns back to the ocean and the birds fishing for their lunch. In Bucky's lengthening absence, Steve takes less comfort than before.

He knows the feeling of the hopeless, inextinguishable torch of a great love.

The eloquent pen of an author summed up that ache gnawing at his guts far better than he ever could. Something would linger on through many years -- dying sometimes and then coming back again, like a twinge of rheumatism in the winter, so that he suddenly felt it in his knee when he was nearing the top of a long flight of stairs.

Bucky Barnes is his flame, the hollow pain in the joint.

Steve shuts his eyes and wills time to fly away. Every second tears into his composure and feeds the incinerating need in his chest. Techniques that help keep the nightmares of the past at bay in the darkest hour of the night do absolutely nothing in the watery daylight.

“Hurry up already,” he whispers into the wind. The silent prayer in his heart colours the irritated tap of his fingers against the boardwalk. As if playful sea breezes might grant wishes, his thoughts run sharp and true. _Bring him back to me_.

So rarely do the fates deign to bestow mercy on Steve Rogers. Their blessings stay firmly away except in times of great need.

Rustling paper signals a return. The blond captain cranes to look over his shoulder, foregoing any dignity. Undisguised hunger burns in his eyes, a soul-deep need so briefly on display behind layers of self-imposed restraint and privacy.

For Bucky, the proof written on his features is a feast. He grins at the embarrassment of riches on naked display.

He takes far too much delight in Steve's desire laid bare, a smidge more than he does brandishing a floppy ticket in the captain's face.

Wheat gold brows shoot up. Leaning back, Steve props himself back on his arms, leaning back into the boardwalk. “What's that?”

Bucky stretches out his arm further, resting his weight on his heels. The spread of the grin grows by a ridiculous magnitude. He could power a small city off it. Undulating crackles follow the snap of the waving ticket.

"Remember that one time we wanted to do the Thunderbolt?”

“One? It was plenty more than that, the way I remember it,” Steve says.

The grin fades away. Bucky bows his head in grim acknowledgment. “Always something to get in the way. A bad spell for your health. Rebecca needed something for school. You know how much I hated being unable to give you even the smallest gift? You looked at that rollercoaster like a slice of birthday cake, and I had to be the devil to tell you no.”

“We never had the money.” Caught up in his own hesitation, Steve finally takes the ticket. He cradles it, feeling more than a little like Charlie Bucket with his golden pass to the Wonka factory. Pain from all those years ago burns in his best friend’s voice. “It didn’t make much difference. I was happy, Bucky. I had you and Rebecca for my family. We were all poor then, not a nickel to spare in Brooklyn.”

“Not a problem anymore,” Bucky says. After all they’ve been through together, the least he can do is make good on an old promise. He spent too many sleepless nights with guilt gnawing in his belly. Today is his first day of sweet freedom in decades. To hell if he’s going to waste time moping when he has the power to set a few things right.

“You're serious. Is it even open?”

A firm nod answers the Captain. Bucky holds out his open hand. “Sure, I rode on it before you washed up.”

“You didn't wait for me?”

Steve’s question hangs long enough for a slow flush to bloom on Bucky's cheeks, a mute horror overtaking his cheerful expression. “Oh no. I didn't mean anything by it.” He drops his hand to his side. “A way to kill time. Stop thinking for a bit.”

In a single motion, Steve gets to his feet and pulls the assassin into his broad arms. The muffled protest bubbling over his neck tapers out, settling in against the bare skin at his collar. He shivers, and rubs his cheek against Bucky's hair.

“You're good, Buck. Honestly, you don't need my permission for anything.”

“Afraid I disappointed you. Like, I jumped the line and left you behind when we were supposed to go together.” Bucky's words are felt more than heard, vibrations rippling across Steve's skin.

“Not like that. Never like that.”

All these years together, and much longer apart. Bucky’s mind used to be like an open book. Steve grapples against the occasional moments of unexpected opacity. He pushes the taut man at the shoulder with his hand clutching the ticket yet, breaking their embrace.

“Steve?” His brows rise, the guarded look creeping back in.

Steve would damn well gouge out a bullet or glass fragments from his own side than let the hangdog misery claim a victim of James Buchanan Barnes again. Step in front of a speeding train, lay down the shield permanently, let life name its cost.

“Checking you're really here and I didn't cook this up half-asleep in my hotel room.” Steve replies with a grin.

“I'm plenty real,” Bucky says. Falling back into the shelter of that embrace takes away some of the rough tension stitched into his stiff back and shoulders.

“We're going to miss out on that ride at this rate.”

“Not likely.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“No one in line.”

“So they'll shut down the ride before we get there. You know how our luck is.” Steve gives a crooked smile.

“I started today a war criminal and left a free man. After a stroll, I had a killer kiss and cleared the air. I don't know about you, but I think _my_ luck is great.” Bucky prods the middle of Steve's chest.

They swivel in concert, a pair of dancers alone on the sandy stage of the boardwalk with no better than seagulls as their audience. Bucky's arm weaves around his waist when they break apart, pointing them to the same direction together.

Steve holds out his ticket, a talisman and his guiding light. “All right, you've sold me. Let's go ride the lightning.”

“The Thunderbolt, Steve. You work with the god of thunder, have some respect for the right term,” Bucky says.

“I might point out thunder is a clap, not a bolt.”

“Aren't you Mr. Fancy Pants.” Rolling his pale eyes, the soldier jabs his elbow into Steve's side.

“Yeah, read it on Wikipedia.” The blond strides for the marquee sign in front of the rollercoaster. “You better get moving or I'm riding by myself.”

“Like hell you are!” Bucky's laughter spills out again, loosened up from some unknown well. He feels the rush of joy, rich and intoxicating, and all is well.

 


	8. The Lovers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [The Lovers](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/lovers/)
> 
> Cryofreeze made two pieces of art of art for this story and her talent absolutely blows me away. Please check out her Tumblr and AO3. As well as her art, she's a superlative author.

_1939._

Steve holds up the fat envelope covered in a dozen washed-out stamps. The return address, typed in the upper corner, remains bold as a pharaoh’s name carved into sandstone blocks. Paper crinkles under his fingers, and he attempts to smooth out the dog-eared corner of the envelope.

“Camp Lehigh.” He says it aloud as though he can’t quite believe the words stamped in by a typewriter. Every grooved letter dips into the heavy paper.

A pregnant pause stretches around him while he holds the documents, staring at nothing. Sunlight streaming through the window warms his face and dazzles his unseeing eyes. Laughter trickles up from the street, stealing through the gap in the battered apartment door. He neglects to shut it, turning back to the spotless kitchen table.

“Don’t tell me you left without me!” shouts Bucky from the bedroom.

The envelope falls in a heavy thud next to a stack of unpaid bills and the carefully folded blanket. Steve zips his coat up despite the balmy weather, the perfect balance of clouds and blue sky to entice anyone outside. All that stands between him and Brooklyn is a dingy old door and a few dozen stairs.

Floorboards creak to betray the emerging brown-haired man, naked from the waist up. Bucky pulls a shirt on over his head, his arms lifted. In every sense he is a beacon of youthful vigor and masculine perfection the way da Vinci and ancient Greco-Roman sculptors exulted in marble. Clean cut muscles trace in a hard washboard under the waistband of his khaki shorts, the narrowing slopes of his flanks converging on a neatly tied white bow. Not a trace of fat to be found, only smooth flesh and lean musculature, the warm complexion begging for a bit of a tan.

How can anyone with a heartbeat not stare? The blue cotton slithers across Bucky’s sculpted biceps, the muscles flexing as he guides the t-shirt over his head. Briefly his face vanishes and allows Steve exactly two seconds of unmitigated appreciation pricked by a longing familiar like a good pair of boots. The blond holds his breath as his eyes travel over the pectoral muscles defined above the arch of Bucky’s ribcage, and he counts each and every one of those shallow dips between strongly curved bone. Not so much as a stray hair on that chest or a speck of a freckle mars the bigger man’s body in every way.

Frankly it’s unfair, but an unfairness tempered by the opportunity to admire -- no, revere, a better way of describing it -- the specimen that is James Buchanan Barnes. The triangular proportions of his torso taper to his navel, the inward dip carved out in an elongated oval against his hard abdomen. Without conscious thought, Steve’s tongue presses to the corner of his mouth. Face to face with that mouth-watering vision, he lacks the strength to tear his gaze away even though he should.

Then Bucky pulls down his shirt, finally settling it over his shoulders. Unrolling the hem takes another few moments and he drops the curtain on the arresting vision of himself. Disappointment courses through Steve watching, and he immediately flushes when caught in the act, cheeks going red high on his hollow cheekbones.

“You’re still here. I thought you’d gone ahead,” Bucky says, pleasure in his voice.

_He’s got to know I was staring at him._ The heat creeps further across his cheeks and merges at the bridge of his nose. “Nah. I wasn’t going to carry the basket on my own.”

“Figures. You just want me as a pack mule.”

If Bucky enjoys his acute discomfort, Steve can’t tell. He forces himself to turn away to the table and shuffle the stack of envelopes into a tidy pile again. With his face down, he stands a small chance of concealing his burning face.

“Who’s going to be the brains if this operation if you aren’t?” he says, braving a crooked smile.

The tall man laughs as he drifts to the kitchen table. His hip bumps up against the side, displacing the heavy wood furniture a good inch across the floor. The squeal of the scrape drowns out his quiet chuckle, and Bucky drops his hand fondly onto Steve’s shoulder. “I seem to recall this was your idea in the first place. You sure you’re up for this?”

Warmth from the recent shower clings to the palm and long fingers dwarfing the cap of the shorter man’s upper arm. The weight settles in and shields his bony shoulder, molding him to shape Bucky’s hand. Steve leans a little to the side, weighed down and drawn naturally beside his best friend. Doubt and embarrassment drain out of his expression. He almost nods his head into the brunet’s supportive arm, catching himself at the last moment. Something else to chalk up to distraction, if he’s lucky.

“Steve?” Bucky says.

He nods. “I’ll be okay as long as the sun stays out.”

“You look like you’re about to fall over.” A more serious tone slides over Steve’s ears. Not the friendly young man, the military recruit emerges from Bucky. Only on rare occasions does he bother putting that authoritative iron into his voice, and it sends a shiver running down the blond’s spine every time.

“I’m fine, Buck. Really.”

“Then what’s going on?”

_Busted._ Steve stares at his scuffed shoes, the leather worn almost down to socks. Despite his best efforts to rub in black dye, he sees the outline of his toes pressing up. Another pair needed soon, if they can afford another pair. Of course they can’t. But he might be able to find work, something. Somehow. Swallowing becomes difficult.

“It’s nothing that can’t wait until later,” Steve says.

Bucky gently squeezes his shoulder. “How about you tell me and let me judge for myself?”

“Please, Buck. Can’t we have a nice day out?”

“How can I have a nice day knowing something is bothering you?”

Light glances off Bucky’s worried blue eyes, and his hand slowly trails down Steve’s arm, releasing the smaller man. He reaches out for the heavy envelope bulging with paperwork and turns it over.

“That came for you today.”

No accusations fly between them, no lingering disappointment. Steve gathers up the blanket in his arms.

“I’d been expecting it,” Bucky says.

“It’s from Camp Lehigh.” Steve hesitates. “Something serious?”

“The Army would have sent over someone in a suit if that were true.”

“Your dad?”

Bucky sets aside the envelope without breaking the seal. “They offered me a job at Camp Lehigh.”

The news takes the blond aback. He stops fussing with his collar to look up, and a smile spreads over his mouth, at first tentative but finding its footing. “Why didn’t you tell me, Buck? That’s wonderful news.”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you in case they said no,” Bucky replies. He slides his hands into the pockets of his shorts, hunching his broad shoulders.

“It calls for a celebration, that’s what. Before or after you fill out all those forms?”

The brunet groans. “Don’t remind me about all the paperwork.”

“Next time, say something, would you?” Steve scrapes his fingers through his bangs. His heart beats fast in his chest and prickling heat still dances along his cheeks, trailing down his throat. “I’m your best friend. That means good and bad.”

“Keep that up and you’re going to make me feel terrible.”

“You can make it up to me by getting out of here.” Steve jerks his thumb at the door. “Time’s wasting.”

The packed basket ends up in Bucky’s grasp, and he easily snags the keys off a nail by the door. “Is that how it’s going to be? Let me find my palm leaf and grapes for the pleasure of Pharaoh Rogers.”

“Stop that.” Steve shakes his head. “I’m no politician or leader.”

“You’re right, Pharaoh Rogers sounds a bit silly. How about Maharaja Steven?”

“ _Stop_.”

“Tsar Stephanos?”

“I’m not Russian!”

“How do you feel about High King Steven mac Seosamh?”

The gentle chiding prods a full out groan from the blond as they merge into pedestrian traffic streaming around the apartment. Every last person in Brooklyn seems to take advantage of the sunshine, eager to escape their stuffy apartments in favour of a stroll. Kids playing with balls and jacks choke the sidewalk up ahead, and Bucky steers them past the parked cars to a side street.

“Seosamh?” Steve asks

“Joseph in Gaelic.” Bucky beams, that cocky grin melting away any residual regrets that the blond might have harboured. Hard to stay annoyed or frustrated with a man so fit and content with the world.

“How do you even know these things?”

“Read it in a newspaper, remember?”

Steve laughs and squeezes the blanket to his chest. He can almost pretend they have no cares in the world instead of a stack of unpaid bills and a half-empty cupboard, and most of the children nearby aren’t underfed and knock-kneed, dressed in shabby clothes handed down or mended one too many times.

Today is too good a day to pass up, dwelling on the hardships and troubles brought to good folk when he can find reason to make them smile. His shoulders rise and his step lightens to keep up with Bucky, though the bigger man always hitches his stride when they walk. Amazing how well matched they are despite their differences in every way.

The blond would rather be nowhere else than right here. Easy to ignore the admiring looks of the ladies directed at Bucky. Steve can’t find much envy in his heart. They aren’t the ones basking in his best friend’s unrivalled attention or about to enjoy a day out on a secluded beach.

Unbidden thoughts dance in his head, and safe to say any of the ladies in sight might be mortified or disgusted to even contemplate a thimbleful of them. Their painted crimson smiles would fade if they knew his groin stirs at the prospect of Bucky emerging, soaking wet and strong, from the waves.

Some part of him needs to be scourged of the impossible desires, and the majority finds he cannot get enough.

Everything about the moment Steve wants to remember, drinking up the brilliant light and the smells on the air, the taste of the city throbbing through his body like a living current of raw possibility.

Anything can happen today. He’s counting on it.

\-----

Three exchanges between trains and buses, and they reach the end of the line. From their last stop, Bucky and Steve join a queue of beachcombers headed for the quieter end of the Long Island shoreline. Cyclists roll past in a thread of laughter and bubbling words that leave Steve seriously considering the value of a bicycle.

It’s a fool’s dream and he knows it. Where would he get a bike and how could he possibly ride a block before collapsing in an asthmatic fit?

So they walk slowly. His feet slide on the soft path and sand infiltrates his shoes. The weight of the blanket, so light before, now pulls down on his thin arms, the muscles burning. Even breathing has a certain sharpness it lacked before as the constant breeze playing over dried grasses fringing the beach robs him of air. His lips are dried and the taste of salt accompanies every haphazard effort to lick them wet again.

Bucky, by contrast, marches ahead so often to conquer the next horizon that he is forced to stop and wait for Steve to catch up. The blond lost count of how many times he received an apology for being left behind by a foray down to the shore. Every time he smiles and shrugs off the well-meant words with the same response. It’s fine because seeing his best friend lighthearted and happy means more than any stumbling step or wheezing cough.

No matter what, Steve can always find the means to forgive Bucky nearly anything. The slow burning in his calves extends up to his knees and he plods ahead, keeping to the course established by Bucky as some kind of bushwhacker.

“Looks like the crowds are starting to thin out!” Bucky calls back over his shoulder. He shades his eyes with his hand, surveying the domain of the beach speckled in the odd open umbrella or sandcastle under construction. Colourful blankets dot the grey-gold sand.

“You said that about three miles back,” Steve says.

Predictably, the wind robs clarity in his words and renders him next to mute at a distance. The silhouetted man cocks his head and finally comes jogging back, in rude perfect good health. In the park, Bucky looks like a rugged explorer to the hilt, minus the battered old picnic basket purloined from a cabinet.

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

“It’s fine, Buck. How much further?”

“See that little spit of land covered in trees?”

Steve follows the extended line of Bucky’s bare arm to the sea, and beyond the pointing finger at a crooked stretch of land covered by a carpet of stunted deciduous trees. A few bushes festooned in thin foliage lend brighter specks of green against the cobalt ocean licking the sandy margins that flank the miniature triangle jutting out into the water.

“Yeah,” he says, uncertainty goading him. “Are you sure we’ll find a beach out there?”

“What, you were expecting a shipwreck or a sheer drop off? Where’s your sense of adventure?” Bucky grins.

That grin does the worst things to Steve. The intensity ought to be criminal and the way his inner resolve runs to molten honey rivulets instead of anything remotely solid and restrained. If Bucky asks him to go marching off to Portugal right here and now, he will start trying to perform a minor miracle of walking on water. Short, shallow breaths coming a bit too fast have less to do with physical exertion from walking or a laundry list of conditions as long as his arms.

Truly, Steve is lucky to remember his own name.

“You pack it in that basket?”

“Along with plenty of other surprises,” Bucky says.

“Good. I swear you took me to Montauk Point. Any further and we’re going to run out of Long Island to walk.” Steve shifts his bundle uncomfortably, hugging it tight. His hands went a bit numb some time in the last half hour of walking.

The brown-haired man finally seems to notice and takes the bundle from Steve. “I promise we haven’t made it to the end of the island. You’d see the lighthouse. A bit further, that’s it. You up for it?”

“Yep.” Even if he isn’t, Steve refuses to accept weakness as an excuse to stop.

“Good. Give me your arm and I can help you through the rocky patch up ahead.”

Maybe God and the angels like Steve after all. He certainly isn’t one to complain about sharing a physical touch with Bucky, and that t-shirt means the heat of the golden fair skin brushes along his arm directly. The brown-haired man carefully wraps his arm around the blond, and they make an oddly mismatched pair finding their way along the beach path. Waves tease along the shallows. Children frolic through their make-believe dreams, watched over by parents tending to baskets and coolers.

Bucky bears him up when he stumbles and waits when Steve loses his breath. He sweats heavily enough that his filmy shirt clings to his body, sticking to his damp skin. The cool shade offered by a straggly copse of trees comes as a heavenly relief, shelter from the sea breeze and the hammer blows of the sun on his back.

Steve about goes to his knees, leaning against the largest tree for support. All the while, Bucky watches him like a hawk, those light blue eyes wreathed in concerned lines radiating out from the corners.

The tree bears the blond up, but he starts to cough, trying to clear his lungs of sticky phlegm.

“I knew we should have tried somewhere closer. Forget an adventure.” Self-recrimination leaves the brown-haired man’s mouth a disgusted snarl, his hands closed into fists at his side. Bucky shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Between wheezing coughs, Steve shakes his head. He fumbles around in his pocket and comes up with a clean handkerchief, bringing the cotton square to his mouth.

“It’s my fault we headed out this far for the afternoon. I know you wanted an empty spot away from the crowds, but this was a bad choice on my part,” Bucky says. “We could’ve stuck to some closer joint. Even if it was Paramus.”

“What’s wrong with Paramus?”

“Everything. It’s still in New Jersey.”

Steve tries to laugh and that jars the blockage free. The handkerchief drifts in his closed hand, stuffed back in the pocket of his pants. He languishes against the tree, his eyes half-closed, taking in the sighing waves and the dappled shadows. Smiling to himself, he tries to take a deeper breath of the brine-thick air.

“Let’s go,” he says.

Thank all the powers that be, Bucky doesn’t ever question his resolve. The last push delivers a great reward, after picking their way around deadfall and thickets of overgrown grasses tangled with the bushes. Slipping a few times, Steve struggles to catch his footing before they break onto the other side of the small promontory. A crescent strip of sand stretches ahead of him for a good hundred yards. The ocean forms a ragged line of froth beyond a few rounded boulders in the shallows, and he cannot see a single soul out there.

In other words, perfection.

“See, I told you it’s worth it,” Bucky says, as smitten by the emptiness as the end to their trudging. He hoists the blanket and basket higher, taking up the duties of laying out their campsite of sorts. Fluffing up the blanket with a good snap of his wrists, he uses his shoes as weights for the top corners.

“This really is something,” Steve says. He looks around to take everything in, hanging back a bit.

“Get your trunks on. I’ll get everything ready.”

_He expects me to change here? In the middle of the beach where anyone could stumble out? Nice to know you’re not a prude there, Barnes._

Heat returns to Steve’s cheeks. “I’m wearing them under my pants.”

“Then get your pants off.”

Words that Steve never in his life expected to hear come with that demanding, resolved tone, slipping over him in a dark wave and retreating with all his willpower.

_Does Bucky have any idea of what he just said? He can’t. No way he can_.

His hands go to his beltline, shaking when he tries to fit the thick leather tongue through the metal buckle. Several failed efforts leave him tugging the secondhand belt tight to his belly, cutting into the inward curve.

_Here I am stripping down and he’s not even looking._

The revelation stings Steve. He wonders why his slim body isn’t worth keeping an eye on. James Barnes, the Army recruit, clearly expects obedience and has it. He eats out of the broad palm of his best friend’s hand at the best of times.

Meanwhile, Bucky gathers a few scraps of driftwood to a point some distance from the blanket and basket, piling up select, dry chunks into a teepee. In short order, he rings the pit with stones to give them a proper campfire awaiting for the lightning spark that generates fire. He keeps looking back at Steve, leaving the blond even more flustered.

“You need help over there?” asks Bucky.

“No!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll leave you be.”

_No, don’t. That’s the last thing I want_. But Steve’s mouth is paralyzed and his treacherous tongue stays firmly trapped himself his teeth. He uses the short respite to finally force the metal prong from a hole cut into the leather with a penknife so the belt fits him. He shimmies out of his pants in record time, hopping around on one foot to slide them down.

Content to grin out to sea, the brown-haired man heads up to the trees to collect debris acting as kindling. He hardly expected such a rich selection of tinder, and he returns with his shirt hem overflowing.

“You might wanna remove your shoes first, just saying.”

Bucky dumps his acquired tinder onto the campfire in progress, and spreads out the material around the bits of bleached driftwood.

Steve turns red as he shuffles with his pants around his knees over to the blanket, belt in one hand. Once he sits, stripping off his shoes and socks proves easy, and his pants follow. He folds them up neatly into a crisp pile, preserving the pleats he ironed in, and begins unbuttoning his shirt. The whole process feels a bit funny with a near god twenty feet away, poking moss and leaves into the hollows around the wood.

“Can I bring you anything, Buck?”

“The matches would be great.” Bucky gouges out a moat around the campfire in progress, handfuls of sand displaced behind him. He goes about everything methodically, quick and efficient. Steve half-wonders if he would be the same in bed.

“Sure thing.”

The basket lid is halfway up before the brunet catches himself, and then groans. “Wait, Steve, no!”

Instantly the lid drops in a clatter, the contents concealed from view. Steve snatches his hand back, half-expecting a cobra to poke its head up from the darkness within. He stiffens, sliding back away in an awkward crabwalk, putting himself to the edge of the blanket. Another warning cry is likely to set him off, exploding into nervous scrambling further for safety.

Spotting Steve from the corner of his eye, Bucky drops the last handful of moss and swivels, staring. He shuts his mouth with a click of his teeth. “Bloody hell, I didn’t mean it like that. I stowed a few surprises, and like a doofus, I would’ve spoiled everything.”

The blond blows out a shaky sigh. “You about gave me a conniption.”

Not more than a few long footsteps separate them, a distance that Bucky covers in the seeming twinkling of an eye. He hesitates at the last second, indecision written all over his tight shoulders and crooked frown. Anticipation riding hot and hard in Steve’s belly threatens to bubble over, an elastic band wound tighter with every passing second.

_Do something._ Frustrated, he meets those bright, searching eyes running over his face.

“Come on, I’ll get the matches and start the fire. You’ll appreciate the heat,” Bucky says.

He aches in every part of his body and the hardness stirring in his shorts remains hidden only by the excess fabric hanging from his hips. For once Steve is glad he didn’t bother tying the cord as tightly as possible. The tightening in his groin rouses lust and dread in equal measures. Somehow, fear doesn’t dampen his longing.

“Feels plenty hot out here already.”

“You’re just saying that now. Wait until you come out of the water.”

Steve slips out of his shirt and pulls off his undershirt, both garments swamping his slender frame despite the small size. Fingertips map out the lack of muscle under his skin, counting ribs one by one, echoing the path he would use to explore with profound interest on another person. Another body, if he were ever given an opportunity to lie in bed and quench his curiosity.

He folds the garments, laying the bundle atop his pants. Surrendering the last layer leaves him prey to the wind and the waves, judgmental gazes from the knotted trees. His arms cross over his chest out of habit, the better to instinctively ward off any looks.

“Cripes, you make it look so easy.” It’s true. Bucky makes the whole damn world seem like a cakewalk. He considers the statuesque lines of his best friend’s body at an oblique angle, head lowered.

Bucky shields the basket while dipping his hand in, coming up with a cheap packet of matches. “Go stick your toe in and tell me how warm it is.”

“I can tell you from here. It’s cold.”

“Better go stick your toe in to get used to the cold, then.”

He swallows. “You sure like teasing me.”

_More like torture, but I shouldn’t like torture._ Steve sighs and trudges over the hot sand, unwilling to break into a run. He has his dignity to consider, what scraps remain. The sting against his soles is only a shade cooler than crossing hot coals. Pausing above the irregular, lacy water, he watches the sediment churn around flecks of kelp and small, rounded pebbles worn down by countless decades of wave action.

Sticking his toe into the sea produces a shock less icy than he anticipated, but the zing of the cold travels up his leg perfectly well. _So much for that plan_. Running in and jumping once he reaches waist-height won’t happen, since he may not be able to reach waist-depth without the onset of hypothermia.

He can’t think of a time when he went to the beach and swam. Either his mother or the chaperones or a lifeguard stopped him, after taking one look. After a life of staying under an umbrella, reading a book or sitting bored as everyone else frolicked, the enchantment is still terribly ambiguous. He is not entirely certain what to do or how to occupy himself.

The vast abyss yawns before him. At least the temperature of the water distracts him from his achingly hard cock.

Pride more than interest pushes him forward, standing up to his narrow ankles. The waves slither over the white arches of his feet, washing off all but the stickiest grains of sand back to their source. Tiny eddies swirl around his toes. He braves out further, unable to imagine anything but the sensation of a tongue sliding up the webbing between his toes over his tendons. He growls wordlessly at the notion and heads in deeper, heedless of the risk to himself.

If he doesn’t get deeper in the water, he might lose all his dignity with the dire need to stroke himself in his own hand.  

The fire takes only a few minutes of careful, deliberate tending to blossom alive in a welter of copper flames. With the sun high in the sky, starting any kind of campfire or bonfire on the beach might seem absurd. Bucky feeds the growing fire until it crackles away merrily, resisting the toying fingers of the wind. He trawls through a pile of remaining moss and foliage to shore up a naked side, poking a stick into the blazing heart until quite satisfied.

“There. I think we can leave the fire be for a while.” Bucky rubs the back of his neck and swats at a ticklish sensation on his neck. Curling hair  “What are you still doing waiting for me? I told you to swim!”

“You told me to check the temperature. No one said anything about swimming.”  
Steve has the bad habit of looking at the wrong times. Bucky chooses that exact moment to pull off his blue t-shirt with painstaking slowness, the deliberate retreat of the hem up the cut musculature of his abdomen and chest on par with how fast some glaciers move. The words stuck in the blond’s throat die, fading away when his thoughts fail to compute anything but the act of undressing.

_He’s fooling with me. He’s got to know._ The blond’s mouth goes dry.

Bucky stretches his arm over his head, casting the shirt aside in a flag of surrender. Flung the distance to the blanket, the cloth is a waving banner until landing in a forgettable heap. His shoulder blades pinch closer as he stretches, drawn in a long, exaggerated arch for the presumptive purpose of loosening up his back.

“You coming?” Steve calls.

“Not until you get there first.”

“Guess I better get started.”

An eager light flickers across Steve’s face, just visible to the taller man before the blond ducks his head. He hastens to find his footing among the waves expiring on the shoreline, their force dissipated along the long stretch of the beach. Even less than knee-deep, the surging water pushes and pulls on Steve. He plods on with a burden on his shoulders far less than the heavy stiffness between his legs.

Bucky’s footsteps break into an outright run. Steve swivels and raises his hands to instinctively protect his face. Droplets flung upwards by the mad dash for the deep spray his bare forearms and splash over his skinny legs.

He peers through the breaks in his fingers long enough to see Bucky’s powerful back rippling in motion, arms pumping to keep momentum against the watery drag. His form echoes Olympic athletes sprinting down the track, powerful and driven, a show-stopping performance to the skinny kid from Brooklyn. High, jogging steps gradually diminish to a hasty slog when the waves lap waist high. The soldier doesn’t even look like he’s wearing shorts, instead some kind of sea god returning to his domain.

Speckled drops run down the shallow trough of Bucky’s spine. Beads lace his shoulders and the nape of his neck. Steve follows at a much slower speed, staring as the water flows in a trickle to the small of the taller soldier’s back.

The cool water isn’t helping Steve’s erection after all.

Bucky looks back over his shoulder, a reckless grin igniting his features. Undisguised moments when his easygoing charm turns to devil-may-care ease are few and far between. “You joining me? I’m going to take a dip.”

“You dive in first. I’ll take a while to get there as it is.” Steve splashes his best friend. The waving arc reaches a third of the distance, a few drops going wide.

“And leave you to dunk me when I come up for air?”

“That’s right, you better keep an eye open for Steve Rogers.”

“More like Shark Rogers.”

“Better than that pharaoh nonsense you were on about later. Now go, or are you waiting for the summer to end? Get going!” The blond slaps his open palm against a passing wave, the tremendous sound booming into the summer sky.

With permission given, Bucky dives into the water, sleek as a dolphin. His feet vanish under the foaming breakers, the shadowy outline of his body distorted beyond Steve’s view. In a few strokes, he is good as gone, and leaves the blond to shiver.

Alone, not a soul in the world to witness Steve and his best friend play. He hugs himself and rubs his arms roughly, trying to divert some of the heat pooling in a molten puddle around his groin higher. The chilly water teases his thighs and slaps his slight body. As much as he wants to follow Bucky, he hangs back.

A dark head breaks the surface a surprising distance off. Steve holds his tongue and waves his hand to respond to Bucky waving at him. The slight motion is enough for the choppier water to knock him about. His foot slips on the sand, and he throws his arms out to his sides for balance.

Whatever Bucky sees must read as distress. He stops waving and dives under again, carried forward by the rolling tide and powerful overhand strokes that slice clean through the ocean. White froth churns in the tall man’s wake.

Steve’s not sure when Bucky learned how to swim that well. He’s always been a natural in the water. The blond has early memories of going to the beach safely tucked away. Those were happy times when Bucky and his father splashed around and Rebecca built imaginary stories to go with her lopsided sandcastles.

The waves go over his head when he trips, and struggles to regain his balance. For just a moment, a brackish world surrounds him in all its murky green glory. Bubbles rise in front of Steve’s eyes. He claws for the surface and heaves himself up, fighting against a far stronger opponent in the Atlantic. It’s not much of a fair fight.

Next time he’ll stay to the shore rather than give into pride. The fall simply isn’t worth the price. His uncoordinated kicks buoy him up and Steve gasps for air, greedily sucking it into his lungs. A book in his lap or a pile of clothes while thinking of nuns, the Depression, and the dole line ought to take care of his embarrassing erection just as well as cold water.

Steve spits out a mouthful of seawater just in time for Bucky to emerge in all his slippery glory, wading through the deeps. He doesn’t say a word -- no question of why the blond went so far when he swims as well as a brick, for which Steve is infinitely grateful -- and only stops when he drags them both into a solid, steady embrace.

“Buck?”

It might be nice to sound calm and nonplussed, rather than croaking, but he plays the hand he’s dealt. The taste of the salt on his mouth matches the larger man’s skin, a fact learned when Steve brushes his lips along Bucky’s collarbone as he turns his head.

Bucky stiffens, his breath hitching when the accidental kiss ends. Contact brands his flesh, a totally different sensation from the waves lapping against his back or Steve’s body contained within his arms. His relentless march to the beach abruptly stops, leaving them waist-deep. Every second he stares down at the blond passes unbearably slow.

“You mean to do that?”

All the fears and nightmares collide and the floor drops out under Steve. His arms fall to his sides, pinned in place. The threat spat out by a beaten young man on the boardwalk left their mark and haunt him every day. It's wrong to crave more than their kisses and gentle touches. Oh, those tender caresses and cuddling the beach feed his desire, but he craves more, so much more. A line they have never crossed. The overwhelming closeness of Bucky's body leaves his heart stuttering and his knees weak, a surge of champagne bubbles fizzing in his bloodstream. Asking Bucky to take him to bed is beyond bold, it's foolhardy and dangerous. If anyone discovered they were lovers, the consequences would be grave. He loves James Barnes with all he is. He can't ask for a sacrifice of a good career and secure future for a roll in a narrow bed.

No one can find out how he feels about Bucky, least of all Bucky himself.

With that kiss, it all changes.

His secret is out. Bucky has to know, even by accident. His yearning for more cannot be hidden now. The cold tremor runs along taut nerves, and his stomach roils.

“Sorry.” Steve swallows hard, unable to force anything else out for a few seconds. Time that Bucky allows him. “Didn’t mean to give you a surprise there.”

Dark brows lower over Bucky’s pale eyes. He looks so disappointed, even though his expression barely changes. His arms loosen their firm embrace, but his strength alone keeps their bodies from sinking to the ground.

It’s not the first time Steve wonders if he miscalculated the odds, but never with his best friend. Escape from the painful truth is everywhere, if only he had the courage to look away or turn away.

“Wasn't a bad surprise.” The mumbled answer from Bucky somehow cuts through the noise of the sea and the pounding of Steve's heart in his ears.

What is he waiting for? Hope hangs by a thread, the slight blond shaking under the immense weight of an unknowable expectation. He doesn't know how long he can hold onto this feeling before the fall, the weightlessness fueled by sheer, raw terror.

Nothing has ever frightened him so badly.

“I'm no good saying this,” he says.

“Take your time. I'm not going anywhere now that I got you.”

Bucky's hand shifts, his thumb running along the bare line of Steve's shoulder blade to soothe away the tremors. It's a sweet gesture without anything more behind the caress. Every time the press of the broad pad rolls along the bone, the blond shivers for a perfectly different reason.

Steve fixes his gaze upon his best friend's face and explores the familiar contours like a statue unearthed for the first time in centuries. Dark hair curves around Bucky's brow and tends to wave above his ear in ripples, proof enough. Fear and lust have common roots in the unknown, he comes to realize.

“Don't think I can put off telling you much longer.” Steve bobs in the sea, the sea beating down on them, sheltered in Bucky's embrace.

“Yeah?”

The taller man isn't smiling or frowning, his bearing calm. That could portend anything. A disgusted growl, shoving him away. A puzzled look or confusion. It's not much to go on, but enough to keep the frail candle flame of hope alive in the blond’s chest.

“That was an accident, but I don't regret it being one.” Steve shakes as he speaks. “Just where I put it.”

There goes the bombshell. The corner of Bucky's mouth goes up a notch, nothing more. “Me too.”

Steve drowns in his carelessness, stuck between two dangerous extremes, fight or flight. If he runs for the woods, any chance of telling Bucky ends. Other opportunities might come up, but he won't live with the cowardice tainting them. That leaves only one other choice open to him. _Now or never_.

“I've got feelings for you,” Steve says.

Hand shaking, he extends his fingers to trace the meanders in the slick, dark hair. After the first contact, Bucky tilts his head a degree to lengthen the contact.

So warm despite the seawater leaving the strands. The longest ends tickle his skin and spill between his parted fingers. Bucky's cheek fits the contour of his palm naturally, though he has to stand practically on his toes to close the distance.

The hand tracing his shoulder blades moves an inch inward and fingers fan out to support him against the constant knocking about from the sea. Bucky's other arm glides lower, an impervious bar looping around Steve's waist, practically on his hips. Distance narrows until they press together, bumped together by the waves.

“Yeah?”

Bucky's faint grin remains. The warm pink of his mouth stretches a little higher, a dimple echoed in his cheek. Every dram of free will leaks away from Steve.

It's reckless self-indulgence to bracket the strong angles and lines of Bucky's cheek, getting himself drunk on the right to feel the wet skin and warmth harboured underneath.

They endure what feels like a lifetime that way, caught in a hug, going no further and refusing to relinquish an inch. Steve's arm trembles, his fingers beating the lightest tattoo against the squared corner of Bucky's jaw. Neither wants to be the one to end the moment.

Finally the brunet can take no more. He turns his head abruptly, lips a scant breath away from those trembling fingers.

“What do I gotta do to win your grace, Steve?”

The question brings out a single bark of a laugh, and the instinctive recoil of a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. The consequences of being found out are so much worse than a scolding and being sent to his room without dessert.

“My grace?” Steve raises his eyebrows, hand frozen midway to dropping away and resting on Bucky's chest. Exhilaration makes him dangerous. “Never took you for a wild-eyed romantic.”

“Never knew you felt that way.”

“Could say the same about you.”

Silence falls between them. Bucky turns his head and presses his lips to the mount of Steve's thumb. He places the kiss with slow deliberation, never allowing his icy gaze to leave the shorter man's face.

Things come full circle. Steve mirrors the act of the kiss, as though the reverent act were not laced on his hand but his mouth.

“What we waiting for?” he asks.

“Nothing now.” Bucky's warning comes too late, for he strikes, sure and certain. His dark head dips, arms tightening to a degree almost painful. It's a discomfort the blond gladly bears, the upward pull giving him necessary stability to meet the kiss in kind.

A kiss of tantalizing sweetness, for Steve, and harrowing uncertainty. He's never kissed anyone as an adult but Bucky and then, he sure as hell didn't know what he was doing. The last time he had any confidence, he played games in elementary school. Certainly those pecks on the cheek lacked the heat and intention consuming him in an inferno now.

The locks come off his restraint. He wraps his hand around the back of Bucky's neck, as though he might pull them closer together. His lips move soft and unsure into the kiss, guided by his best friend's lead. Tentative brushes earn warm, eager results, the building strength tipping his head back.

He could go on like this forever. His lungs have other ideas.

Wheezing for breath, Steve pulls back a little. His mouth tingles, almost burning with the warmth. The shared kisses on the boardwalk and on the beach are nothing to this. More, he wants more, lifting his face upwards.

Bucky devours his healthy pink mouth like fruit, his hand buried in Steve's golden hair. The width of his hand practically engulfs the back of the smaller man's skull, offering unrelenting support. Nothing can threaten him inside the shelter offered by James Buchanan Barnes, and no hurled word or cruel intention will ever break through the protective wall he raises.

Emboldened by the security, Steve parts his lips. His tongue emerges for a gentle flick over Bucky's, and he receives a poetic groan loosed from somewhere deep inside the taller man. Soon their tongues are tangled together, Bucky leading the chase until he can suckle upon Steve's.

It's not just the brunet groaning then.

Hardness builds against his sodden shorts, and Steve for once doesn't care about the heavy fabric hanging from his hips. The drawstring chafes his navel, the only thing keeping the oversized waistband from sliding right off his bony hips.

The melting heat of their mouths translates into hands wandering, curious explorations of strong muscle and narrow shoulders. Rapt with him, Bucky keeps coursing his hand from Steve's nape down his back and up again. The smaller man's fragility deserves its own kind of careful manhandling.

Whatever space parted them vanishes, and that possessive arm around Steve's waist bars any retreat. He'd have it no other way. He utters sounds he didn't know he could make as their kisses play out, rough and bruising, coaxed back to soft and gentle by turns. His hips thrust forward of their own volition, and he discover Bucky hard, achingly stiff under his swim trunks.

If he acts, he cannot confess innocence or turn back. Knowledge is a cup, once drunk, that transforms someone forever. Steve knows, and in doing so, places his hand delicately upon the tented khaki.

A bubbling sound, half-pained and pent-up need, travels up Bucky's throat to his lips. Vibrations run across the shared bridge between them, and for an instant he pulls back far enough to allow for speech.

“Stevie, you don't have to--”

Steve squeezes his hand tentatively. The unyielding firmness of Bucky's cock almost takes him aback, and his fingers widen to span more of its girth.

“I want to,” he says without the least trace of doubt.

Whatever roughness the kiss held before is a pale shadow to the wild lupine strength turned on him now. Teeth catch his lower lip and nibble, pressing down, leaving a string of marks in a crescent he'll wear for hours or days. Bucky stands relatively still with great difficulty, the tension winding up the muscles in his back and hips.

All the power, Steve holds and that revelation proves as intoxicating as drinking a whole beer. He prefers the sensation of this drunkenness to the queasy, stomach-turning inebriation of a lager. Bucky cups his face, the better to kiss him with bruising, delicious force. Ever the gentleman, though, he pauses frequently to leave Steve time to catch his breath, but not enough to process the intensity turned on him.

Clearly not thrusting into Steve's hand kills him, and the blond takes mercy. He slowly works the brass button to the shorts free, twisting and hauling on the stubborn fabric until it parts. Bucky's hard length bobs up, slapping into his palm, at the abrupt freedom from confinement.

James Barnes doesn't wear underwear while swimming, Steve learns. His open shock translates into the slack response to a kiss.

Bucky halts, his sawed breathing coming quick and shallow. “Something wrong?”

Bet he's never had to say to a girl. Steve takes absurd satisfaction from the halt, and he responds to the pause by running his fingers up and down the natural curve of the shaft. Some men pet the smooth paint job on a new car that way, dazed and wondrous.

“Not at all.”

Swallowing a boulder of agitation, Bucky buries his hand back in Steve's hair. His wordless thank you comes in a gentle knead and tipping the blonde's head to the side, the better for him to start kissing Steve's neck..

“Oh _Buck!_ ”

His yelp ricochets above the murmuring white noise of the Atlantic, loud for anyone to hear. They both instinctively stop and Steve sees not a thing while Bucky surveys the shoreline for any signs of beachcombers drawn by the noise. It's close enough to a curse they might have an amateur lifeguard running to save the day.

Moments slide by, painfully slow. Bucky pulses in his hand and Steve is too spellbound not to stroke the broad length of the shaft in his fist, slow-moving, cautious.

The saltwater makes for a terrible lubricant, especially underwater, and the natural drift of the rising tide inundates the couple little by little. Steve tugs upwards to keep the dark plum tip pointed at his collarbone, moving a little faster when Bucky rests his chin atop his head.

“Coast is clear,” the brunet manages in a strangled tone.

Steve only speeds up the tempo. Too close a brush with danger reminds him he doesn't have all afternoon to complete this self-appointed task, the gift he bestows on his best friend. His wrist twists while he keeps losing his grasp on Bucky's slick cock.

Littering kisses over Steve's neck, the taller man hunches over and that keeps him from effectively thrusting himself into the sweet prison of tight fingers milking his hardness. At most Bucky allows himself small strokes to take the worst of the edge off, and he loses all sense of time when the water swirls around his balls like so many tongues lapping at his skin.

“You like this?” Steve asks.

Never mind he knows the answer. He wants to hear it murmured against his mouth from Bucky's own lips. His fingers compress in a squeeze to respond to the thickened cock pulsing in his hand.

“Think I'll die if you stop.”

Bucky's laugh crackles against his mouth, and robs any chance to speak by sealing Steve in another kiss, one so deep it electrifies him to the shaking core of his being.

He shifts his position, flicking his thumb across the flared crown in swipes from side to side, still pulling his fist up and down. The heavier rock of Bucky's hips complements the pace, and soon he forgets the dull ache in his shoulder or the litany of small complaints under a fiery wave of raw pleasure.

They pull together again, the embrace intending to erase every distinction between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. The brunet intends no less, constricting arm around Steve's waist drawing them chest to chest, hip to hip.

Every joint locks in place the instant Steve’s cock rubs against the hard shaft in his hand. His shorts act as a cruel barrier from skin-on-skin contact, and perhaps a grace too, because he is already about to combust on the spot. That kind of closeness he couldn't last for.

Bucky's tongue ravishes his mouth while they roll with the sea, forced back a few steps towards shore until the water level rolls around the shorter man's thighs and not above his waist. Every step marched backwards gets a solid tug that pulls them ever closer to the brink.

The hand job does its magic on the tall man, leaving him shaking like a blown thoroughbred, his sides quivering and buttocks clenched. Where Steve's fist moves, he follows, repeatedly jabbing into the tightened grip until his pace forcefully knocks Steve onto his heels.

Their shafts rub together now and then, trapping Steve's wrist between Bucky's broad, muscular thigh and the blond's groin. Pivoting swivels more deliberately bring them together, and Steve dimly realizes that Bucky does it deliberately, rather than by accident.

“I'm close.” A moan demolishes Bucky's ragged whisper..

Steve palming the overly sensitive bellend of Bucky's cock does the rest, the rough circling throwing him over the edge. He has a moment to utter a lupine cry, hoarse and low, and press his mouth hard down on the blond's yielding lips.

His release is a thing of primal violence, a savagery that splatters pearly wetness across Steve's wrist and in a line up his torso. The climax marks him with a sticky, hot war paint, molten on contact.

Still he strokes, working in the slippery wetness until Bucky's erect length shines vaguely opalescent under the sun. Until the water washes it away, they wear the proof.

It takes far too long for their panting breaths to normalize, caught in a synchronized rhythm. Bucky plants his feet wide and Steve shelters him in kind from prying eyes, his body interposed against any beachside wanderers who came upon their campsite and wonder at the young men simply playing in the waves.

“Thank you,” Bucky says. What else can he possibly find the words for?

But the risk of discovery is higher with every passing second.

“My pleasure,” Steve says, and he means it. “Come on. Let's get moving.”

Somehow they manage to pull their clothes into proper array, somehow they manage to cross the dozen yards back to the sand. Steve pulls on his shirt as a matter of protection, and he still wears Bucky's drying cum on his chest as they open the picnic basket for their lunch.

He isn't ashamed.

 


	9. Judgment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [Judgment](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/judgment)
> 
> Cryofreeze's art absolutely blows me away. I absolutely commend her for making so beautiful and emotive. Please visit her Tumblr and AO3.

Bucky leans against the orange railing and watches the two rollercoaster staff, agog with wonder, shake Steve's hand. He's seen royalty and world leaders treated with less respect, and celebrities of all stripes subjected to less fervor. The two men hold back the rush of questions, defaulting to choppy statements of wonder and awe. Without even listening, he knows exactly how the conversation will go. Steve was a big hero to their grandpa -- maybe great-grandfather, for the teen selling tickets -- and when he came back, he resumed being the big damn hero to them too. They tiptoe around asking for a signature. Their widened eyes prove they can't believe how big Steve really is in real life.

With a practiced eye, he watches his best friend's response. The easygoing charm melts over young and old alike, wiping out unease with a laugh. Laughter comes from the teen, punctuating their one-sided conversation. Nothing new about that, either. Steve tends to shoulder the burden of asking questions and teasing out stories from them. The blond man adjusts well to halting admiration, but his jaw twinges. Only for a moment. For Bucky, it's a yellow flag swept over the concourse.

Time to stage a rescue. He pushes off the railing and saunter back to the platform. After a solid forty-two minutes of riding the Thunderbolt, he is amazed to have his land legs, all things considered. Whatever the Russians cooked up in a secret lab gave him a cast iron stomach. Presumably Abraham Erskine took motion sickness into account when formulating his serum all those years ago, since Steve is the epitome of good health where other, lesser people would be clutching their stomach or curled on their side near the bushes.

Neither the operator or the ticket seller give the man with long brown hair the time of day. Once, he took such things for granted, just a consequence of being sidekick to a real-life super soldier. Then, he revelled in his ability to pass undetected. Those days faded away with the smack of a gavel, a declaration from a court a few miles away. His ego slinks out from its deep, hidden mental den and assesses the oversight.

Something else bound to change with time. He no longer has a full-body flinch whenever he approaches the spotlight. Cameras still put a tingle up his spine and too many smiling, unmoving socialites in a static situation keep him on edge. Not like any high flying celebrities intend to invite him to their parties. Steve receives the lions share of the invitations. Tony ever bemoans the volumes of mail finding their way to his office and the Avengers headquarters. Might as well be a man with his own zip code.

A man who needs saving. Steve stops talking long enough to catch Bucky's eye, and in those beautiful baby blues, a look of gratitude shines. There and gone, but a cue that Bucky does the right thing by interceding. Clapping the man on the shoulder, he leans in.

“Sorry, guys, for letting him take up all your time. I'm sure you've got work to do.”

The teen splutters a protest overruled by his older coworker. “The boss won't mind. It's not every day you get to say Captain America rode with you.”

“Just Captain Rogers today,” Steve interjects, so smooth, it's clear he constantly corrects people on that front.

“Right, right, our secret,” the ride operator says.

Bucky's attempt at a smile tightens, plastered on over his face with a bad fit. Always the fear of being caught out these days. Nothing like the Sixties when the worst he feared was a long-range photo lens or a wire tap, things easily shaken off with a bit of proper spycraft. Not this era of surveillance devices in every back pocket and social media blasting stories entirely out of proportion.

“None of this is going to show up on Twitter or Instawhatever in a half hour, is it?” Bucky asks both, but his frozen gaze lies on the teen.

The poor boy about wets his pants on the spot. He backs up a step. If recognition never came before, some primeval instinct claws out of the muck of his brain to activate all systems to a red alert.

Steve glances at him from the corner of his eye. Yeah, he wants Bucky to cut it out. The same instinct puts him in receiving lines, shaking hands with senators and enduring trophy wives begging for selfies together. Plastic smiles and empty eyes peering into the digital screen are the sort of publicity Steve doesn't need or want.

“Of course not. We'd never think of it.” The older ride operator glares at the teen. “I'll confiscate his phone myself if it makes you feel better.”

“There's no need to do that,” Steve says.

“I'd appreciate it if you did,” Bucky replies at the same time.

That about settles the matter, for the blond man accede, raising his hand. The operator looks between the two of them and nods slowly. Enough to soothe the protective streak roaring through Bucky's veins. He has enough on his plate to add an adrenaline-fueled defense of Steve atop it.

The man smiles to the two Thunderbolt employees, clearly meaning to make up for the faux pas of Bucky interrupting them. One sweep of the wrecking ball leaves points of conversation for Steve to clean up, and hopefully leave no one the wiser. “Thank you for the ride. I hope you know how much it meant to us.”

Bucky nods. “Been wanting to do that for a while.”

The teen gives a timid wave of his hand. “Of course. It's so cool to see you here.”

“I hope everyone receives the same kind treatment we had today,” Steve adds. “Something to make their Coney Island experience magical, the highlight of their trip.”

“You can count on it. We pride ourselves on that,” the older employee nods, and looks like he wants to snap a salute. Thinking the better of it, his hand hovers at his side.

From anyone else, the spiel might sound like a marketing campaign. Sincerity strikes the heart when Steve speaks. Neither of the employees of the Thunderbolt know that skinny kid once dreamed of being well enough to ride the rollercoaster. They never stood on the boardwalk looking up at the twinkling lights or the ominous curves of the rails arcing into the sky. Bucky doubts either came up short for money for a ticket, though the extortion rate for a single ride would put it out of reach for a regular visit.

Sometimes even he forgets the personable force of nature Steve is, and how a living symbol means something still in an age of media soundbites and fifteen second attention spans. Nudging Steve's elbow, Bucky starts to turn for the boardwalk. Behind him the last farewells rise and fall. Soon they're walking the length of the boardwalk, past the shuttered ticket booths and dormant rides.

“That was nice.” Steve stuffs his hands in his coat pockets. “I hope they won't get in trouble for letting us ride that long.”

Bucky lifts his eyebrows. Not more than an inch or two separate them while they proceed, side by side, through the empty park. Just like old times. “Seriously? Steve, they probably haven't had three customers all week and you show up. Of course they were fine with it. I can't see management complaining about showing Steve Rogers a good time.”

“If they get in trouble on my account, maybe I can write the company a letter.” That faraway, dreamy look in Steve's eyes is never a good sign. He is probably Composing the letter in his head, rather than watching where he walks.

“Yeah, and they'll frame it forever,” Bucky says. “This way.”

They turn onto the long finger jutting out into the sea. Faded banners flap on the light posts anchoring the broad pier. Not another soul in sight drifts along their route. Bucky still does a full scope of their surroundings, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

Steve beelines for the bench where he stashed their picnic basket and towel. Neither bundle is disturbed, much to his pleasure. Neither can Bucky find any evidence of tampering except by a messy bird. Bits of broken shell litter the pier, evidence where the birds drop clams for their dinner.

Bucky kicks the fragments back into the sea with a sweep of his boot. “Hey, Steve. What does the rest of your schedule look like today?”

Running a hand through his hair, the man fights a losing battle with the wind. Those golden locks need a trim. “Other than checking in for an hour debrief with Director Fury, I haven't got anything planned. You have something in mind?”

“Already rode on the rollercoaster and had a picnic. I figured we could top it off by going back to your place,” Bucky says.

The reply isn't so much a splutter as a distinct inhalation taken in sharply. Steve's nostrils flare as though scenting the wind. Bucky catches all the other tells as they cascade through the man, his fist clenching and his crystal blue eyes going wide, then narrowed. Steve does a good job of masking his surprise by standing still, slowly dropping his chin in a nod.

“Sure, we could do that.”

Time to plan. Not like Bucky hasn't had six weeks of empty time to fill with something beyond pushups and sit-ups. Breaking the endless monotony of the unoccupied hours in his cell gives him a honed plan. He knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it, and that means Steve groaning his name or, better yet, incapable of forming a coherent word or thought.

Steve scoops up the basket and the towel off the bench. “Let's go then.”

“Not yet.”

Two little words from Bucky stop the blond man totally in his tracks. Freezing in action rarely happens. A fatal mistake for a soldier.

“You can leave the basket on the bench for now.” Bucky tips his head at the end of the pier where a protective metal fence stretches between white stanchions. A single spot dips down to a flat bench about knee high. “We're going swimming.”

Steve stares at the water for a moment, the basket thumping on the bench. "Look, I may jump out of airplanes, but I'm not about to go jump off the dock and into the surf."

“Hot damn.”

Steve gives him the most delicious look of total disbelief. His mouth opens and remains so. The breeze isn't strong enough to distort sound. “What did you say?”

“I know you heard me loud and clear.” Bending over, Bucky starts unlacing his boots. He doesn't miss how the blond's gaze drops naturally to his midsection and slithers freely over his dark pants. Interest stirs in turn, the low-grade simmer of desire turned up to a full boil. “You and I are going to dive off the pier into the ocean. We will swim like a pair of hot-headed kids. Don't try to use the excuse that the water is too cold because that holds no water when you survived the ice.”

“You ever consider I don't like cold water as a result?”

That owlish blink from the man puts another jolt through Bucky. Yes, going into the water is exactly the right thing to suggest.

“You've never been afraid of the cold in your life. Calling your bluff there.” Metal and flesh fingers make short work of his jacket, stripping off the garment. He throws it to the bench beside his shucked boots, leaving only his shirt and pants to dispose of.

“Wait. Buck, come on.” The blond still hasn't moved.

“You know what I think?” Starting with the shirt is easy. Two buttons open and he pulls it over his head.

“Really?”

The second intake of breath is more of an attempt to steady Steve's nerves than anything else. Soon as he hears it, Bucky inwardly grins. The first crack in that redoubtable composure reaches the surface, and all he needs is time and patience to bring the blond to his knees.

“I think that's the best idea you've ever had,” Bucky says.

Steve stares at him openly when the shirt blocks his view, but he takes his time pulling off the garment. His cut abs flex and pull against the strain of raising his arms higher. For a second, Bucky totally forgets about the destruction laced in faded silver scars around his shoulder. He trembles when the cloth whisks over his tight nipples in the briefest kiss. Sparks flicker over nerves already responding to the cold.

 _That's it, Steve. Stare. Show me what you want._ He jettisons the shirt in a careless toss, putting his hands on his hips in a bold, open challenge.

Steve licks his lips, those perfectly shaped, full lips that Bucky wants bruised and parted in a smile. "Buck, you can't be serious. No."

“Yes.”

"No." Quieter now, the protest draining out.

He curls his fingers in a come hither motion and Steve responds, taking several steps in his direction. With every step he takes one of his own back towards the bench at the pier’s end.

The gauntlet drops between them unspoken. Steve presses his lips together, torn between openly staring at the black and gold vibranium prosthetic, the washboard muscles of Bucky's naked torso, or meeting his cool gaze.

A total lie. Bucky relies on his poker face to conceal the excitement stirring deep in his core. The ghost of a smirk curls his mouth, and that's always been catnip to his best friend's impulsive side. Slowly he turns to display the line of his back where the damage stands out worse than the front. Radiating scars squiggle like starbursts drawn by a fine-point pen. Swallowing the old disgust at his injuries, he carelessly rolls his shoulders.

"Yes, Steve. We're going to do it."

Steve drifts up next to him, reaching out to trail a ghostly path down the bare trough of his spine. Even that much of a connection burns alight on his skin. A fresh wound that cuts straight to the soul, delivered by calloused fingertips. Bucky's loose hair falls around his face, dancing on the breeze. All the better to hide his face. Not for the shame.

For the mischief.

“I can't believe you're thinking about jumping off. You're stir-crazy--”

Steve isn't prepared for Bucky swiveling on him rapidly. Surprise slows him down by a fraction, no more, but that's all the brunet assassin needs to gain the advantage. A lick of ruthlessness and opportunity serve their purpose. Five seconds is enough. Steve's leg bumps up against the weathered edge of the bench. Metal fingers wrapped around his bicep overpower his defense, and his wide eyes glitter with uncertainty.

It may be the first time Bucky kisses a target before throwing them. Not much of a kiss, mind you, but enough to completely divert the man's attention to their mouths pressed together.

Torqued to bring his strength to bear, Bucky shoves Steve off the pier.

The splash a moment later proves so incredibly satisfying. Waves washing under the pier slap up against the pilings. He gives a desultory wave to the body smoothly bobbing up from the deeps several yards further out than the initial point of impact. Water streams off Steve's head and shoulders, and for a long moment, they merely stare at one another.

 _Showed you, didn't I, Stevie boy? Perfectly great idea._ His cheeks hurt from the grinning.

“How's the water?” he shouts.

“Buck, it's cold!”

Bucky leans against the railing, putting a flimsy metal barrier between himself and anything that Steve might lob. He can't see the blond's hands. Obviously, the healthy shout leaves no doubt in his mind all is well below.

Yawning, he calls back, "Steve, don't be a puss."

The man blinks at him, bobbing in the sea. Powerful kicks keep him floating in place, no danger of his clothes weighing him down. Steve pulls on the collar of his shirt, and instantly attract Bucky's attention. The wet material blouses around him under the water. Life is so unfair, denying him a view.

“Come say that down here, chowder-head.”

Oh, so it's fighting words. Bucky chokes on laughter. In their day, anyone calling him a chowder-head was six seconds away from getting a knuckle sandwich. He waves briefly, the metal of his arm aglow in the weak sunlight.

“You're doing just fine without my help.”

“I'll show you fine.”

The blond ducks under the water. Light slants through the sea, revealing the blurry rocks and rippled sand. Steve's strong legs churn up bubbles and foam, and he surfaces in a burst, sleek as a dolphin. Bucky notes the bare stretch of his shoulders and his arm a moment before Steve hurls something at him.

Long honed instincts beaten into the Asset send him tumbling across the pier. His bare feet grip the wooden boards, and he grabs a rail. The projectile lands with a loud squelch two yards from where he stood, the impact crater outlined in water around the lump.

Steve's shirt. He threw his bloody shirt. That means his chest is bare, and if the gods are good, his pants might follow next. A few more minutes wrestling clothes off will give Bucky plenty of time to execute his plans, opportunities to work with. Never mind Steve skinny dipping to claim a victory short circuits something in his brain.

The rest of his body stirs with the burning interest of Steve stripped down to his boxers. Because no way on this earth would he deign to wear tighty-whities, much less go commando. Swim trunks are still stowed in the picnic basket.

A good thing, considering. He scoops up the wet shirt and makes a show of wringing it out while Steve flicks his golden hair back from his face and mock glares. A heady glee burns over his expression and he watches Bucky's every last move. Might as well give him a show.

Bucky throws the shirt over the rail to dry, a war prize meant to taunt his beloved partner scowling up from the sea. Only the emerging dimple in his cheek hints at the effort Steve makes not to laugh.

A boot follows in short order, deflected off Bucky's metal arm. It bobbles into the air and comes down in the middle of the pier. “Steve, I don't know what they taught you in SHIELD, but this isn't how you woo the ladies.”

“Good thing I'm not trying.”

“Doesn't seduce the gentlemen, either.”

Another boot pulled off ends up in Steve's hand among a froth of bubbles. He thrashes around with his victory prize, eyeing up Bucky on high. “Good thing you're not a gentleman, sauce-box!”

“Not feeling like much of one, no.”

The exhilaration of being a teen again rolls over him. Heady laughter mingles as he takes a dead run straight for the pier's end. Zigzagging to throw off the blond, Bucky spins in a last minute deke before leaping over the rail. He clears the barrier by a foot and dives into the sea.

Submersion in cool water counts as one of his least favourite things ever. Too many memories of Siberian torture chambers, dimly lit and stinking of fetid air and fear, cycle through the shadowy parts of his psyche. He holds fear at bay. This isn't a dented steel basin and no straps hold him down to a stretcher board. When his feet hit the bottom, he opens his eyes.

Briefly he sees Steve from a fisheye view, feet cycling, the sunlight blurred in a watery halo around him. The familiar sight brings him comfort. Pressure burns in his lungs. He orients on the man and stretches out his arms arrow straight, hands in a prayer. The strong push off the bottom redirects his momentum, and he kicks hard to close the distance.

Without the element of surprise and not more than ten feet in depth to work with, he has to take what he can get. Steve ducks under the water to tackle him. Their limbs wind around one another, arms sliding around torsos or blocking grasping hands. Bucky's hair swirls around him, dusky water weeds that flow slowly with their struggles.

An unfortunate sight that Steve still wears pants. He decides to take care of that problem. While the man grabs at him and holds him sideways, he twists around like an eel. Those strong arms pin him down. He corkscrews uselessly within them, twisting this way and that, reveling in the defined muscles pressed to his ribs, his pectorals.

He should've done this years ago. A simple joy in trying to wrap his legs around Steve's waist is foiled by being pushed deeper. He yanks on the waistband of the man's pants. Frantic kicks slow to avoid tearing a seam. That won't do, he wants his best friend freed up, not embarrassed.

“Hey!” The shout reaches him underwater and he grins, fingers prying open the button. Countering, Steve yanks his wrist away, forcing his arm over his head.

They hang poised vertical in the void, captured like some ancient Titan fighting a Greek hero. Sunlight limns Steve's head in a golden wreath of liquid fire. Fierce and commanding, a grin carves his shadowy features. He is beautiful and relentless. The strings of Bucky's heart jangle, and the lightheaded rush has nothing to do with their underwater struggles.

Another hand around his wrist, a bed instead of the sea. Plans fit together in rapid order. Variations on variations lock together in a jigsaw. He imagined how this felt, but little matches the reality.

 _Fuck_.

He jerk his arm free of Steve's fingers. A bare foot lands on his thigh, pushing him down. They twist around and rocket up.  

Occasionally their heads break the surface. He gasps wetly and hurls himself forward, forcing Steve to follow. Their combined weight displaces a wave. It's the prosthetic giving Bucky the advantage, granting negative buoyancy.

He rolls on his side and Steve dives down, the two of them locked in an absurd ballet. The next salvo of attacks come against his pants, pulled here and there. Steve manages to rip open a pocket in one frantic turn, and out floats a spool of wire.

He swears, bubbles bursting from his mouth, and snatches for it. The blond floats back, apology written all over his face. Clouds of sediment block visibility and he feels around for the slim circle of wire. Not that it holds great value. He can find a replacement at any hardware store, but the inconvenience counts for something.

His hand casts aside fishing hooks and empty bottles, debris from waves of kids and adults hucking their junk into the sea. Foul behaviour. Not like most of them get a view like this.

A shadow ghosts over him and Steve emerges from the dust column. A broad palm extends out, the garrote wire a supplicatory offering. Saying I'm sorry without a word. That thoughtfulness sends warmth to his cheeks and sinking deeper into his groin, stirring him to semi-hardness.

When he takes the wire, shoving it back in his pocket is difficult, hindered by the water. The blond vanishes, swimming off fast as he can. No matter, he can't escape. Burning lungs push him to the surface for another breath of air and he quickly checks out to sea. No Steve.

The bastard is already running for the shore, pulling himself along with powerful strokes. As he reaches the shallows, Steve dashes in a march, propelled by the water at his back.

Bucky sighs to himself and drops into a crawl. Not the most efficient from a stealth perspective, but it gets him where he's going. He follows the dissipating creamy wake behind the broad-shouldered man. His splashing around alerts Steve, a look shot back, and then his chugging march turns into an all-out run.

Moment his foot hits the sand, he'll be off like a shot and that is hardly sporting -- or swimming. Bucky redouble his efforts, cutting through the waves until efficiency forces him into a run. He bursts through a breaking wave and angles on the strand spangled by driftwood and the occasional alarmed sandpiper.

The distance closes a little, proof Steve waits on him. Allowing him to catch up. That'll be the last thing he _allows_ Bucky. From here on out, Bucky decides he'll be the one calling the shots, _allowing_ or _permitting_ or nodding to Please, Buck, may I?

Steve's compact, efficient jog becomes a sprint. He can eat up fields that way without breaking a sweat. Bucky watched him practice in the early morning, tearing through the red soil of the Wakandan countryside. But where his stride is regular, Bucky lopes, deceptively slowed by a powerful, long run.

Water splashes around them. His bare feet sink into the sand and leave water-filled holes punched in a trail behind him. The thrill of the hunt rolls over him, his quarry Steve Rogers, their end destination the apartment -- close enough to a den. He ignores the soaked pants, the way they tug and pull on his legs.

Running for the hell of it twists his grin wider. Steve lags now, slowed by some purpose, checking back over his shoulder too often. Bucky gains on him, not slowing up.

Steve shies out of the water, headed for the rolling sand. “Hey, look out for the ne--”

No need to warn. No need to stop and process the call. Bucky flat out tackles him back into the waves. Whatever threat the net provided, they roll right through it and end up sprawled flat in the shallows.

They go down together and roll, thrown through the surface. Being wet and sandy and mucky feels so incredibly good. Forget how water ends up in his nose, and Steve spits out fragments of kelp. Nasty rope slick from lying in the water leaves gunk streaked on them, and he bats his hand around to wipe the foul mix off Steve. In turn, the blond rubs the detritus off him.

“What was that for? I tried telling you--”

“I know,” Bucky cuts him off with a laugh.

Steve's nostrils flare and he drops his head back, water lapping up to his shoulders. They half float and half thrash in the waves, inundated when the larger rollers break over them.

“I don't know what I'm going to do with you,” the blond mutters to himself.

Bucky presses his brow to the man's. His grin arcs sharply, electricity shot between them. “We already talked about this. You're going to take me home.”

“It ain't much, I'm warning you.”

He bites Steve's lower lip, only a nip, firm enough to leave an impression. “And then you're going to get undressed and wait for me by the bed.”

“I am?” The blond negotiates a slurred answer, his pupils widening slowly.

Bucky kisses him hard and full on the mouth. Enough to seal that bite with a bruise, robbing Steve of breath to answer. The heated press back against his lips is answer enough. Grappling turns into more of an undulating embrace, and he drapes over Steve's body, buoyed up by it. Anchored to the world by those arms.

All is exactly how it should be.

“You are,” he murmurs. “And then I'm going to fuck you senseless, and show you how much I love you.”

Steve rolls them under the next wave, offering up his mouth. Claiming his prize, Bucky kisses him until his breath runs out. Their hands dance within their limited range. He was put off once. Steve won't have to wait nearly so long again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to drop any comments or kudos if you enjoyed this story, as they're motivating and wonderful sources of feedback for me.


	10. The Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [The Sun](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/sun)

Bucky isn’t really sure how they manage to get from Coney Island back to Steve’s apartment in one piece. Clearly they made the journey on foot using the old routes back from the Forties, when public transportation cost too much of their spending money to justify. They hoof it through streets laid out the same way for a century, only the cars and facades changing in an endless parade.

Down an alley where Steve once took on mean old Barney Cole, the nastiest kid in the seventh grade, much to his lamentation. They get three steps in and share a long, hard kiss under a fire escape spangled by someone’s laundry and dozens of small white railing planters overflowing with the earliest spring flowers. Neon green potato vine caresses Steve’s wet hair while Bucky tilts his head back and teaches him a thing or two about ravishing a man’s mouth with his tongue.

Across a park they once claimed in the name of Queen Rebecca the First, staking out a spot under a spindly tree while his sister issued imperious commands. He shoves Steve up against the weathered statue that long ago replaced the tree, someone’s effort at modern art making the perfect place to pin down the greatest heroic icon of the modern age. Not much of an effort to push him off leaves the blond squeezed up against twisted steel rafters making a mockery of an actual tree. His shoulder shores up under a curving rivet. Bucky’s hands wander freely around the fine formalwear utterly destroyed by a full dousing in the sea, straightening the buttons he skews. Soft moans smothered under his palm give him better reason to scratch lines down that broad chest, tweaking the pert nipple to demanding hardness.

Then of course, he simply must stop and lower his head to deliver a violent kiss upon that nub denting the white cloth spun finer than a dream and more expensive than the monthly lease on fancy digs in the city.

Steve arches into his mouth as the seal of his lips bears down on the salt-impregnated fabric. The briny taste isn’t exactly pleasant, but far from the worst thing he’s ever consumed. Besides, the pressure pulling on the erect flesh plumps it out and leaves the blond man writhing against the steel girder in the most delicious way. Fetching, even. Steve’s hands open and close at his sides. Only the towel draped over his shoulder as a protective barrier keeps his suit jacket from tearing along the seams and sprinkling a button onto the shabby asphalt.

Silence reigns except for the occasional slurp punctuating the molten warmth poured around the translucent weave of the cotton. Bucky pulls back to admire his handiwork, the oval areola a dusky pink underneath its tented shelter. He glances up to check the dazed expression coating Steve’s face. Sea-bright eyes sparkle with a manic light. Not far gone at all, but sufficient for his purposes.

He twists the plump nub a full turn and a quarter, building increasing pressure from his metal fingers. A protesting groan slips out from the captain, who lowers his head to watch. Warm tanned skin, pale shirt, flushed pink nipple, and black vibranium digits are a sight seared into their minds at once. Steve’s chest heaves in rapid, shallow breaths, further threatening to shred the garment pulled taut over his torso. Releasing the tormented bud, once more the vibranium digits tug it straight, plucking, quick motions timed almost exactly to the frantic pace of breathing sawing through parted red lips begging to be kissed again.

Bucky denies him that. He drops both hands and steps back, cool as a soldier comes. Stooping to pick up the basket gives him an extra few seconds to reconfigure his composure, burying the soaring emotions in his chest.

“C’mon, we’re not getting anywhere before dusk at this rate,” he cheerfully throws down another gauntlet to see the response. Picnic basket in hand, he smartly heads down the one-way street out of the park. Pulling his coat over his shirt, Steve follows in hot pursuit.

\-----

Their next stops come faster and fewer between, punctuating the stretches of gentrified bliss that transformed Brooklyn from anything they knew growing up. Gone are the repair shops, the grocers, and the five-and-dimes, replaced by strings of gourmet supermarkets and upscale bars going by ironic names. Not many of those hip folks in their skinny pants or thick glasses pay either of them a second thought, though Bucky keeps orienting his path to avoid the thickest crowds. Old habits die hard and he cannot wait much longer to reach the apartment.

Worse comes to worst, he may break into an unoccupied building or find the closest AirBnb. Stripping out of clothes and shoes damp from a dip in the sea comes a distant second to surrendering to the promises communicated in passionate kisses and caresses on the Long Island shore.

Bucky’s patience burns through fast as they slip past the cafes and shops, darting around emerging Brooklynites too cool to brave a rainstorm. Thankfully no one stops them for a selfie, the bane of modern existence. He will never be comfortable with the abundance of cameras to trace his every move. A few pedestrians startled from their reverie catch sight of Steve Rogers in a spoiled suit worth their student loan trotting alongside an exonerated war criminal, no longer accused of crimes against humanity in the _case of the century_ until the next sordid deed comes along.

It’s New York. He’ll be lucky to make it to the morning news without being displaced by the latest affairs bubbling away in the Middle East or East Asia. In no way is that any sort of drawback. Bucky doesn’t need fame, but he grins inwardly when the befuddled looks transform into a procession of widened eyes and not a little bit of longing in their wake.

Steve is a handsome man, bar none. In some way, the appreciative looks reflect well on him, too. Captain Rogers chose him, loves him, and stands by his side through thick and thin. That alone leaves him a bit breathless, winded enough for Steve to make a concerned noise and raise his pale eyebrows. Bucky waves him off with a shake of his head.

Then they turn off the main route, zigzagging around construction sites wrapped up in ten foot tall vinyl signs advertising luxury apartments coming in a year. Far fewer pedestrians straggle down the one-way street. Desperate for the feel of warm skin on his, he strikes. Steve gets to spend a fair bit of time staring blankly at the declared features $1.2 million dollars buys while his throat comes under another assault from the brown-haired assassin. Lips and tongue brand a possessive mark beneath the collar, sucking heat to the surface. They press together against the rough plywood boards sheathing the building sites from casual, prying eyes.

“You’re gonna give me a hickey.” Steve’s voice is thick with need. The dark notes beckon like pastries in a glass case, begging to be devoured.

Bucky leans back, examining the mottled lilac bruise. He grins and lavishes a swipe of his tongue to soothe the imperfection left on otherwise unscarred, immaculate skin. From experience he knows nothing will last more than half an hour, the broken capillaries knit back together by the serum. “Should have done it ages ago. I’ll have to keep marking you.”

The low chuckle is music to his ears, balanced between delight and something almost shy. Steve’s ears blush pink to match the colour blossoming under his cheeks.

Simple tastes are not enough. Their words land short and rough, promises of greater things to come. No one looks at Steve the way Bucky does, much less impress his prayers in a hushed voice. “I want you. Right here.”

“Wait. We’re close.”

“I know.  I can feel you’re hard,” Bucky says, and buries his face in the protective curve of Steve’s broad shoulder. Whatever attempt he manages at humour is ham-fisted at best, his usually nimble mind fizzing with distracting possibilities. He grins at the fast, eager breathing over his ear that ruffles his loose hair.

“Only a little further. We’ve waited this long.”

“Anyone ever tell you I’m sick of waiting?” Bucky says.

The blond rubs his collar, gingerly wincing when he palms over the fresh hickey staining his throat along a range of smaller love bites. “I got the message loud and clear. I promise, it won’t be long if you keep moving. Standing around, we’re never going to get anywhere.”

So they hurry.

\-----

Somehow they reach an anonymous apartment building five storeys tall wedged among its neighbours with their clothes and dignity intact. Glass windows reflect the turbulent sky, clouds glowing where daylight breaks around their cottony margins. A red blush coats the blond man’s cheeks from the relentless caresses and pinches turned on him whenever traffic slips away. Denied for years, the vanished restraints allow the unspoken desires to overflow. They cannot get enough of one another.

While the elevator offers the most direct route to the apartment, Bucky shoulders open the door to the stairs. He takes them two at a time, basket thumping against his thigh, Steve following a step or two behind. Grim determination carries him to the fifth floor and he isn’t even winded by the time they emerge into the well-lit highway. Adrenaline spurs him on, running quicksilver and hot in his veins.

His blond captain halts in front of the stairwell doorway, stepping out into the light. A momentary pang of uncertainty passes over his sharp graven features, the flush having nothing to do with the physical exertion. Running the stairs top to bottom a dozen times wouldn’t bring more than a faint dapple of sweat.

“We still good?” Bucky asks, driven by necessity and a harboured dread somewhere under his chest. What he would do if Steve says no is a given. Turn around, walk away, halt right there. Never mind his heart flutters in manic anticipation and a terror absent for so long.

“Yeah.” Steve nods. “Just…”

“Never thought we’d be here like this.”

“Something like that.”

“Doesn’t have to be today or even tomorrow. Hell, Steve, it doesn’t have to be any time in the next ten years. After how long…” Bucky trails off in a mirthless chuckle, walking on ice.

With a few jerky movements, Steve fishes out his keys from his pocket and thrusts his hand out at Bucky. Words fail, and when they fail, action counts. The keys fall into his hand and the captain’s fingers close over his, making the invitation apparent. Bold, by any standard.

In a moment, they close the distance to one another. Stars thrown off one another’s course, these moments coming together are so rare and precious. For a heartbeat in Vienna. Again in Berlin. The few precious weeks in Wakanda. Bucky isn’t sure who began the embrace but they hold one another tight, and passion ebbs for the sheer, essential need to touch and hold. Assurances whispered in Steve’s ear bubble up from his throat, the words probably nonsense, but all holding the rich intent they will be okay, they are together, and it’s safe.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

That key breaks the spell of doubt, and then Steve brushes his lips over the corner of Bucky’s mouth. He turns his head to meet that kiss, gentle forays turned thrilling and sweet, the way a flame explodes into fire given the least encouragement. His face held in warm hands forges a lifeline, and how easy to forget their clothes are still damp and they still, somehow, have not managed to get inside.

All he needs to do is look around and realize Steve Rogers is his source of happiness.

Three tries of his key finally opens the lock. His hand keeps slipping when Steve leans over and kisses him with bruising force. He presses hot, urgent kisses beneath the hollow of Bucky's neck and across his jaw when he can't place them directly upon his mouth.

Keeping his grip on the keychain when the man suckles the space behind his jaw proves almost impossible. Bucky presses his forehead to the door, measuring up the relative pros and cons of kicking the damn thing down. Immediate access to the apartment might be great, but the lack of a barrier to a relatively soundproofed space is a definite downside.

They're going to need to have a conversation about some definite boundaries. After they get inside, after they dump the ridiculous picnic basket currently in Bucky's hand. It prevents him from exploring Steve as fully as he wants to, and for that sin, the basket deserves to be set aflame and flung out the window. No hard feelings. He just needs touch like a man in the desert craves water.

No such limits apply to the blond. His hand traces up and down Bucky's damp shirt. Water managed to seep through and now it pulls heavily across his pecs, stretched thin. Remnants of his haphazard effort to hastily buckle the front of his coat clutch his stomach in a sea of buckles and zippers. The top hangs down, a limp navy page folded over from a corner.

All the territory Steve could want for his playground remains fair game. He presses his palm down over Bucky's nipple, the better to listen to the thundering temblor of the heartbeat.

“I can't believe you're here,” he admits in a whisper against the throat liberally savaged by kisses and sucking forays.

“You keep that up we're never getting inside.” The protest sounds harder than Bucky means. Keys finally yank free from the tumblers in a rough whine against the cylinder. He twists the knob and boots the door in a single motion.

The best part of being Captain America obviously doesn't lie in the personal apartment rented on his behalf. Not that he gets to be much of a judge, spending most of his adult life between shacks, laboratories, and cryo containers. Bare wooden floors and plain white walls impart a kind of cold sterility he never associates with Steve. A few sketches tacked to the walls add a bit of personality, completely at odds with a framed painting and a bright woven textile hanging above a sturdy leather couch. Personalized touches blur the feeling of a short-term rental, but only so far.

Clearly the occupant hasn’t moved in much.

“Told you it wasn't much,” Steve murmurs, brushing past to slip inside.

Bucky shuts the door behind them and throws the deadbolt, not bothering with the sliding chain. He drops the basket to his feet while the man stoops, unlacing his shoes and presenting an absolutely glorious view of his ass. Naturally, Bucky slaps those firm buttocks.

A high, whistling sound escapes the blond, neither whine or cry. He turns rigid, lurching forward at a precarious angle and sliding straight back into place. Bucky administers the reward for taking a spanking with grace, sliding his palm gently over the expensive trousers treated so badly. If he should feel any shame despoiling the fine Brioni suit by subjecting it to salt water and now beating it, he really doesn't.

“Does it have a bed? That makes it a premium spot.” Bucky glances at the row of sliding doors and the intersecting hallway, gathering a sense of the layout. He hooks his arm under Steve's and pulls the man along.

The mild protest carries an edge of regret. “I'm trying to take my shoes off.”

“It's all ruined anyways.” Steering them into the hallway, he glides straight for the large door set perpendicular to another, probably leading into a bathroom.

When Steve starts reaching for the handle, Bucky sweeps his metal arm out and imprisons the wrist in his vibranium fingers. So easy to pull straight up and pin the blond to the wall, moving with the rotation. With some real effort, the tethered man might break free and find himself an escape. The thought never so much as crosses Steve’s mind.

He arches along the axis of his raised arms, back pushing off the wall, the better to meet the distance to Bucky’s chest. Their near equal height and strength is never so apparent than now, testing boundaries by shifting against one another. Bucky presses his knee between Steve’s legs, gently parting them, the resistance of powerfully corded thigh muscles rippling along his skin through the slacks. Riding a tiger might feel similar, the compact muscles sheathing raw power. He clamps down on Steve’s arm where it slides against the wall, other hand insinuated around the small of his back.

Pressed cheek to cheek, they might be about to ballroom dance, turning to the lyrical strains of a waltz. His nose brushes over the elevated rampart of Steve’s cheekbone, tracing a spot and nuzzling in. The taste of salt teases at his bruised lips. Hushed, panting breaths permeate the air, replacing any words.

They are well past time for words. What mere poetry might capture the sentiments preserved for eighty years?

In turn his own clothes are under assault, large hands roaming across his collar and trying to toy with buckles and straps that fasten the last bit of his jacket. When they advance down to his belly, Bucky thrusts himself forward, flattening the taller blond, imprisoning his hand from proceeding any further. Long fingers brand an impression against his bunched stomach muscles, Steve’s knuckles trapped against his abdomen.

Slowly he presses up with his thigh, brushing against the betraying hardness. His mouth turns up in a ghost of a smile, tentative, a mere echo of the cocky, blithe confidence he projected as a much younger man. Time changes all things, transforming Sergeant Barnes into Bucky, and who he is now is something of a mystery. He hasn’t decided on much since obtaining a not guilty verdict and his freedom pressed into his hands by irate guards.

Nothing except this, that he loves Steve Rogers more than ever. That he would have no other way to celebrate.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” he says, drawing back from the waist to meet that startled, sleepy blue gaze.

God, Steve looks beyond incredible in the throes of desire. He harbours a warmth to his expression that melts away any traces of doubt in Bucky. Those reddened lips call him to attention. The crooked beginnings of a smile deserve to be smothered under a kiss, and the slight glaze over his eyes encouraged until basking in the hazy warmth of afterglow. There must be time for all those things to play out, for all he wants to strip and fumble his way like a teenager right there.

No. They’ve waited far too long for this.

“Yes, sir,” Steve says. Almost a mumble, dragged to distraction.

“Good. I promise it's worth it.”

“Better be. You're asking a lot.”

“A lot, _sir_ ,” Bucky cuts in, clarifying the point with a squeeze.

Steve's glassy eyes close and he shivers. “I always had a thing for a man in uniform.”

Quickly, Bucky adds his warm hand as another shackle around the wrist pinned to the wall, an exchange essential for his purposes. Vibranium fingers tease a dark, grooved trek across the length of Steve’s forearm, tracing the muscles that sculpt the powerfully defined lines back down to the elbow. He explores how the bicep forms, rock hard when extended overhead. When he reaches the underside, the blond flinches.

“Wait. You’re ticklish?” Devilish insights tip his smile back into a grin, almost lupine.

Steve tries to duck inward, the better to shy away from the cool fingertips traversing the dip in along his armpit. His elbow flexes and straightens, finding no escape from the tightened fingers bracketing his wrist.

Impulse overtakes any common sense and Bucky laces several lazy figure eights across the exposed terrain. He pushes himself close again while the blond twists and turns, unable to find any shelter from the tease. His sensitivity clearly is no lie given how he yelps, tossing his head. The narrow box of his hips rolls side to side, legs scissored against the broad thigh angled between them.

“Buck! Hey!”

That’s new. Something he never had an opportunity to try. Bucky cannot resist, his hand pulled into the hollow again by magnetic lines. For all his century of life, he damn well wants to hear Steve’s laughter pouring out.

“But you’re enjoying yourself.”

“What’d I do to earn this?” Steve asks breathlessly.

He pretends to consider while striking with his fingertips, seeking out the sensitive spots along that upraised arm and the hollow of the blond’s side. “Hmm, jumped out of a plane, crossed Nazi Germany, ran ahead into enemy lines. Do I really gotta go on here?”

Steve helplessly laughs. No longer are they on the threshold of love but two boys roughhousing again. Blond hair whips across his face. Feet scrabble against the floor. His limited attempts to squirm his way free prove futile with Bucky on the offensive.

“I shoulda known better. Guy who knows all the weak points and all.”

“You always did have a chink in your armour for me.”

A swat at his metal wrist does nothing but allow another opening to run his fingers lovingly down the washboard ladder of Steve’s ribs and meander along each dip on the ascent. The taller man torques from the waist, twisting away from the unbearable stimulus. His chest heaves for breath, his arm anchored helpless over his head.

The assassin really should relent and allow him to breathe, but simply coaxing out another laugh is almost too much. He palms over the flat of Steve’s nipple as a diversion from going after his side, and the sudden intake of breath explodes in a gasp full of pure need.

“Bucky!”

He halts, hand pulled away. In perfect stillness, Bucky is poised to minister another bout of teasing to a vulnerable point. His knee presses into the wall between Steve’s thighs, chafing the apex where the prominent tenting against the trousers cannot be denied. A rosy flush runs down Steve’s throat, his eyes bright and molten from unshed laughter.

They have never sparred like this, never allowed their guards to fail for fear of judgment from unseen eyes, monitoring by unknown forces. Even in Wakanda, they dared not stray too far from the regimen agreed between them and T’Challa, the king. No one must suspect Steve or Bucky of collusion ahead of a trial. In the past, Steve’s brittle constitution never allowed for much horseplay for long. Certainly never rolling around on the floor tickling one another.

He gulps for air and the rusty timbre of a rueful laugh escapes him like the last notes from a pipe organ. “Too much?”

With a small shake of his head, Steve leans as far as he can to claim a brief kiss, almost shy. As if they have not both wound around one another like ivy and oak, inseparable through the seasons. The guileless sweetness catches Bucky off-guard again, slipping under his protective armour worn against a cold, brutal world he doesn’t trust and likely never will.

His cool hand rises to frame Steve’s face, his curved palm moulded again to the hard, arrogant lines. Heat seeps into the vibranium plates, approximating a natural warmth upon the smooth metal. His thumb fits perfectly to the underside of the blond’s jaw, long fingers fanned against the cheekbone.

They kiss again, lips soft and clinging to one another, shaping a plea without a word exchanged. He loosens his grip around the arm pinned to the wall, easing the limb lower slowly until Steve wraps it around his broad shoulders. Eagerness drives him into undulating waves crashing against the taller man’s shore, their chests moving together, legs sliding upon one another.

“Buck, please,” Steve says.

Music to his ears, that quiet, raspy plea.

He suckles on the blond’s lower lip, tugging it softly, teeth sinking in a fraction. The blunt pressure widens Steve’s eyes and sends a low groan vibrating up from his throat. A streak of hunger obliterates any restraint whatsoever. He runs his fingers through the thick, dark hair at hand, combing the heavy tresses and closing his hand into a loose fist.

Bucky lifts his chin, guided towards meeting those urgent eyes, melting into the endless blue depths of Steve’s gaze. Heat sweeps through him, rebounding from fingers tingling at their tips and back through every circuitous inch of his veins. He aches to be touched as much as he aches to know every bit of his best friend by slow exploration of those fingertips, an act of reverent discovery.

“I love you,” he whispers. Shriven by honesty, he exhales. Looking back, he will remember the moment when worry leaks away and he steps into a freshly-made world. The admission comes without a pang of fear. He shifts an unknown burden off his shoulders, casting away that yoke with a cleansing, deep breath.

Right now, it’s way too easy to feel as though the world drops away and he floats above the apartment floor. Phantom pains no longer dance along his scarred shoulder and he stands a little straighter.

Steve says nothing at first as he absorbs Bucky’s words. He gazes down upon the brown-haired assassin, calm and clear-eyed, reactions under control despite a barrage of longing and shivering urgency. Slowly the faint smile spreads, catching fire, widening until the blond’s whole face is illuminated by a boyish charm so at odds with his worldwide reputation as a soldier and leader.

Bucky grins again in turn, triumphing over the shadows cast through all the long years. In victory he can be gracious. Their brows press together, the meeting of minds while he curls his fingers around Steve’s, and their hands form a comfortable, steady clasp.

“I’ve loved you forever and a day. Losing you destroyed me. I never much forgave the Soviets or the Germans for robbing me of the best friend I’ve ever had. I thank my lucky stars every day to have you back.” Steve’s lips move against Bucky’s, separated by no more than a hairsbreadth. Every time he shapes a syllable, he imprints the contours of the sound against the brunet assassin’s mouth, something to be savoured. Adding a new depth to the experience, Bucky swallows the confession into his heart.

Steve loves him. He hasn’t been left out in the cold, headed out halfway to bare his heart and denied any reciprocation. Bucky’s smile spreads, deep enough for his cheeks to ache. Stepping back takes all the willpower left to him, opening up a temporary divide beckoning to be filled once more.

Those golden brows raise a notch and cut a thin line between them, centered right above the bridge of Steve’s nose. Bucky rubs his thumb over the man’s knuckles, those big hands pressed tight to his mismatched ones. Calm slowly overtakes the jittery reaction, and he is reminded this is new to his best friend too, and they feel about in a fog for anything familiar.

Swallowing, he tries to remember the fantasies played out in his head like an old record. Putting his wishes out there plainly takes courage, since the words sound so harsh and unromantic to him. Maybe Steve was right and he’s an idealist never given the time to flower.

“Can I to take you to bed?”

Steve nods, not trusting himself to speak much.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to drop any comments or kudos if you enjoyed this story, as they're motivating and wonderful sources of feedback for me. <3


	11. The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a happy ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major arcana: [The World](https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/world)

They roll off the wall and Bucky smoothly manages the doorknob, showing none of the flustered grab from earlier. The latch gives and a heartbeat later, they both slide into the bedroom. Walking backwards, the assassin cares nothing for the polished, blindingly bright hardwood floorboards or the walls caressed by a clear sea-blue shade. Steve’s arms envelope him like a pair of protective wings, and he is undeterred by the execution of careful footwork to avoid tripping over the sparse furniture dotting the room. Steered around a wicker laundry hamper and a rolling office chair, his thighs brush up against the large bed, signalling him to sit.

Not the way he had in mind. He envisioned this encounter a thousand times over when in his own right mind. How he would touch Steve in the tender, almost innocent kisses and caresses in his sepia-toned daydreams under a damp tent in the war. Empty hours in jail he filled with private visions of the feverish lovemaking beneath the pale gold equatorial sunlight in Wakanda.

Now the moment has arrived, and they are back to where it all began. Coming full circle to Brooklyn strikes Bucky as right.

He reaches his hands for Steve and their fingers interlace together. An unbreakable bond, forged all those years ago, established again. Bending to kiss each knuckle, he offers his humble reverence with his warm lips.

The blond tips his head forward. His riveted gaze follows the slow ascent of the kisses and how they crest each flexing knob. Such a gentle profession of love has him achingly hard.

Time was, Bucky would never think of paying direct attention to the obvious. How many times he jerked himself off in the shower after seeing Steve's shy affection for him. Almost impossible to imagine he has the right to touch and to act.

“On the bed,” he says, hoarse and insistent.

“Right now?”

“No, Steve, in three days. What do you think?”

Impatience flares at the teasing, the kind of impatience when he wants something right now. Bucky has felt cold and hard inside for a long time, worn down to a chilly remnant of his old self. Cracked open by a kiss, he runs hot and passionate.

Too long since he felt this way, decades possibly.

“Think I better clear my schedule,” Steve says, making no move to sit. His fingers squeeze tight and he brushes their linked hands against Bucky's mouth for another kiss.

Anyone who thinks straight-laced Steve Rogers lacks an impulsive streak and a lick of defiance a mile wide doesn't really know the man, not like Bucky does. He flexes his knees and stands, abruptly on the heels of his feet.

“Sit.” Harder, forceful, the sergeant's voice cracks whip-hard between them. He withdraws a few steps, his hands resting against his waistband instead of his belt loops.

The blond brows raise and Steve swivels, dropping onto the spot occupied by Bucky a moment before. Picture perfect, his posture is straight and his shoulders squared.

 _I'm going to ruin that perfection by tonight. And I don't feel an ounce of regret for it_. Bucky bites the inner corner of his cheek to stop himself from smiling.

“You can get comfortable,” he says quietly.

He remains still, poised on the balls of his feet, and Steve reclines back against the bed. His hands sink into the duvet cover behind him. Such a casual image, the brown-haired soldier almost laughs again. Not many people ever see Captain America at rest.

Aware that attention remains on him like a hawk on a rabbit, Bucky takes his slow time to raise his hand to his ruined coat. His thumb skids among the limp buckles ringing against his chest, swaying as he draws a deep breath. The stiff leather doesn't want to fit into the steel squares, but he forces the matter, fitting the tongue through and cinching tight.

Once his jacket is fully secured in place, he feels closer to himself, instead of a kid caught red-handed in the cookie jar. Steve's expression is openly curious and confused, a line emerging between his eyebrows again. He will understand soon enough.

“Your foot,” Bucky says, gesturing. He reaches for the raised leg, hooking his hand beneath the calf to support Steve.

Without turning his gaze away from those blue eyes, his vibranium fingers tear into the water-swollen knots. The laces give with muffled snaps, one after the other. On the first few, the blond stiffens up but he keeps still. _Good, keep it up, Stevie._ Bucky unconsciously wills patience on them both. He yanks the laces apart, opening up the boot. The tongue drags away from the stiff sock and he unrolls the damp wool to bare a pale foot.

Both drop to the ground together with a thumping note of finality. Steve lifts his hips slightly as Bucky runs his cool metal digits down the top of the foot and sculpts out the high arch. He wishes he could feel a damn thing. No matter how gifted the smart whip of a princess is, she hasn't been able to fully replicate sensation. His damaged nerve endings cry for the smooth warm of flesh, but find none.

Steve licks his lips again, and that attracts Bucky's gaze to measure the forming bruises that will disappear. He moves unhurried to lower the captive leg and claim the other, removing the boot with the same fastidious care. This time he exchanges his grip, letting his right hand dip under the thick wool sock. He traces the indentations left behind on Steve's leg by the tight fit as it dried, thumb whisking along every crease.

The soft inhalation turns sharp when he drags his nails along the instep, and he grins. Found a weak spot to exploit, information filed away for later. They have much farther to go than simply divesting Steve of his boots.

He draws out the leather belt, setting it aside on the bed in a brown coil.

Bucky has to go to one knee, kneeling in front of the bed. His hands skim up in tandem over the ruined trousers, pressing to feel the powerful muscles rippling beneath. Steve remains frozen in his recline, and the fatal mistake in adopting that position becomes clear almost instantly. The slope of his stomach and his spread legs pull the damp fabric taut over his arousal, and the stirrings to full hardness rise before Bucky's very eyes.

Not touching is incredibly hard. He instead slips his hands underneath the waistband midway from Steve's hips, smoothing out the fabric. Every minute tug pulls the tented pants even tighter, dragging the front seam over the stiff length.

“Oh God,” the blond breathes out as he grapples with the curiously diffuse teasing.

“Just Bucky will be fine. Or sir.” He really does like that on Steve's lips.

The hoarse laugh breaks. Steve mutters, “Punk.”

Bucky privately grins, and continues slowly dragging the fine wool across Steve's clothed cock. The underwear probably made a hermetic seal; this only worsens the pressure of the material as it rubs, dampening any chafing.

Those broad fingers splayed into the comforter form tight fists. Steve's eyes grow heavy-lidded and intent on the tickling turned erotic. His stomach muscles quiver and flex under his shirt and jacket, and Bucky chooses his moment to lean forward at the precise time the blond lifts his buttocks from the bed.

A hot breath rolls over the peak of the tent, moist and torrid as a summer breeze. The warmth seeps into the damp fabric, a counter to the relative coolness of the air and the wool.

Steve's moan is honeyed music to his ears, a hymn of praise after so long. Bucky withdraws before the impulse to press his face closer and lavish kisses on the insistent erection overwhelms him. He may be cruel in their foreplay, but not without mercy.

His fingers resume their place on the waistband and Steve freezes. His buttocks have gone tight, sinking back onto the bed. The brunet locks eyes with him and smirks. A heartbeat passes in fraught uncertainty, and while Steve awaits the end, Bucky flexes both hands forcefully enough to pull the door of a car.

Wool pants don't stand a chance, no matter how well tailored. No Savile Row master has yet integrated vibranium threads to their most expensive suits to resist tearing. The garment shreds along the seams, and Steve spontaneously jerks his hips. Unwilling to overlook opportunity gifted to him, Bucky drags the remains of the trousers down, letting them pool around the blond's knees.

Only those white briefs remain, a last barrier clothing that beautiful cock. If Bucky ever had reason to doubt his fractured memories, he has the proof before him now that Erskine's serum really did enhance everything.

He remembered right. The reality still leaves him adrift in a choppy sea of desire for a few seconds, his eyes blank. Aches stir in his groin and he clenches at the quivering zing ricocheting along his spinal column. _All things in good time_ , he reminds himself.

Time is no ally to him now. He wrestles with his patience, glancing at Steve. The hot flush is back to his cheeks and his chest rises and falls to his rapid panting. Pillows previously concealed by the comforter now emerge, the fabric gathered closer to his white-knuckled fists. Cracks in the blond's composure travel right down to his curled toes.

_Perfection._

Steve is half-naked, draped in the pants around his spread legs. Before he can close his knees, Bucky slips between them, rising to stand. Leaning over Steve cannot be construed as anything other than looming, and the way the blond cranes his head back exposes the powerful lines of his throat and shoulders. All the better for him to kiss Bucky's chest, and nuzzle his nose under the ribs. The brunet nearly comes apart then and there, frozen on the cusp of tenderness.

The muffled, “Oh, Buck,” stitches over his skin through the jacket. He cups the back of Steve's head, feeling the loose, long strands that exceeded military standards months ago. Every kiss burnt onto his jacket steels his resolve to continue.

“Arm,” he whispers, one word out of so many.

“Here. It's not fair you're so good at this.”

Steve offers his left hand up in the air, shifted off balance. His weight drills back onto his right palm. Retreating slightly to a more upright position, Bucky takes the sleeve of the coat and finds it still soggy, dripping water onto the bed when squeezed. His insistent tug skews the garment over those broad shoulders. He can practically hear the thread give. Steve retracts his arm and together they ease off the jacket, one sleeve at a time.

That leaves only the shirt and white underwear, both retaining glorious translucency even while they dry. Nothing is left to the imagination across the broad muscles of Steve's back all the way to his stomach, a gift for Bucky.

“Arms back. Get comfortable again.” He needn't say it but he wants nothing to stand in the way of appreciating the view of Steve.

Leaning back takes a moment. The strain not to curl inward defensively stiffens the blond's physique in the most fascinating ways. If they had more time -- if he had more patience -- Bucky might rifle through the drawers for a pencil and paper to capture the fascinating shadow play. As it stands, he's lucky not to pin his best friend to the mattress.

“I've never seen anyone handsome as you.” Steve tips his head up.

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

“Don't…” Again the blond licks his lips. “Don't take off the jacket.”

His heart thuds against his ribs, bruised by the simple request. Bucky dips his head and kisses the side of Steve's throat again. “Not yet, I won't.”

Another kiss becomes several slow, suckling tastes. He can't get enough of the man he loves.

“Please.” Plaintive, the request asks for everything and nothing, as though Steve himself isn't sure. The plea strikes home through the brunet's heart.

He'll give Steve everything he could possibly want or need. His life's mission has been keeping his best friend safe, protected, and content. Devotion to the cause never wavers. It won't now.

“I got you. Til the end of the line,” he murmurs, the heart sworn oath of a knight, the promise stretching across their lives.

Raw need electrifies the moan answering him. The blond tips his chin higher.

Fuck waiting.

 

* * *

 

Starved for sight of the man he wants, Bucky takes no time at all to remove the dress shirt ferociously. Buttons fly into the air and hail over the floor, rolling under the bed and past the bookshelf groaning with novels and texts. Calculated strikes go out the window. He tears the shirt away from those supportive arms, sending Steve back onto the bed. The white ghost sails through the air, cast forgotten into a corner.

Steve insinuates his hands between them to start easing his underwear down and Bucky intercepts him, capturing his wrists. They grapple for a moment but he hoists those long arms over the blond's head, pinning them down against the mattress. The arch of Steve's spine hoists him higher, an offering made of warm ivory skin over the taut musculature worthy of deification.

Vibranium fingers tighten as Bucky bears down to pin the taller man, his knee driven between Steve's hobbled legs. He stretches himself out, mouth curled in a predatory grin, bearing down.

“Buck-- what-- you're--” Tattered words punctuate the gasps from the blond.

He dips his head and goes right for the neck, the hickey there calling his name. Bucky's teeth sink into muscle and skin, delivering a sharp nip. A cry and rougher struggles ensue, but he pushes his shoulder hard into the man's powerful chest, sucking kisses on the way.

Steve's hips thrust hard. He convulses under the assassin, riding out the rolling waves pleasure stirs in him. Every lap of Bucky's tongue stirs up frantic thrusts along the taut crescent of the captain's body.

He's almost ready. Almost.

“Don't touch,” he whispers into Steve's ear between heated kisses. “Can you do that for me? Look into my eyes and keep your hands to yourself?”

The moans build in resonance, trapped deep in Steve's throat. Bucky feels the Adam's apple bobbing under his lips, tasting the salt of the skin. His fingers clutch at those strong wrists, tightening their constriction. No escape now, not ever.

“I… I don't know,” Steve moans. Even now he deserves to be praised for his honesty.

“I need you to promise me you won't touch.”

Steve's eyes are misted blue, rolling back as another kiss catches the sweet spot beneath his ears. He jerks and strains so hard that Bucky has to fight to keep his grip. “I'll try -- I promise not to but--”

“Not good enough,” Bucky purrs. He wanted that reply. The mere idea of Steve fighting to hold onto the headboard leaves drips of pearl wetness smeared across the tip of his cock, but he fights down the lust so badly. His hands knead their way along the length of Steve's elevated arms, apology for the roughness pinning them down. “I want you to enjoy this totally, without touching me or yourself.”

Steve's eyes meet his, bright blue and glassy, full of a harrowing trust that he vows never to break. He traces the angles and lines of the blond's face, following the inward curved hollows of his cheeks, the chiseled definition of his chin. They meet for another kiss, tender and spontaneous.

He'll never tire of the freedom to touch and taste. Bucky hunts for the discarded belt, finding the loose end by touch. Leather slithers across the top of Steve's thigh and caresses up his flank. Every bump that kisses a rib brings out a shift, rocking him against the assassin.

The blond sucks in a breath. “What are you going to do with that?”

“Will you let me tie your wrists?” It's a big ask. Bucky hesitates, prepared to throw the belt away at the first negative word.

“I'm not sure,. I've never… Not had anything. Not anything like that.” Steve falters, apology and doubt smoky around his expression. They kiss again, hungry for one another's lips. Bucky wants him only to know love and pleasure, even if the darker stirrings of his heart are far from absolute. “Do you want to?”

“That doesn't matter. Only if you want to.” He presses his lips gently to each eyelid, then to Steve's forehead. “We don't have to.”

“I'm not saying no. Just I…”

Steve loses his voice and finds it again, his fingers still linked overhead where Bucky left them.

“We could try. See if you like it.”

“Would you let me go?”

Bucky nods. “Swear on Ma's grave. I won't take you anywhere you don't want to be.”

“Does it feel good?”

“Yeah. It can. Let go and allow me to take care of everything for a little.” The assassin smiles. Their brows touch again, and he loses himself in the closeness, the nearness of something he never thought he'd have.

“Then you can tie my wrists. I trust you.” Bravery has never been in doubt for the blond captain, not as a skinny boy confronting a bully or the leader of the Avengers. “I don't trust myself not to touch you. I want to so badly.”

The eager writhing slows under him, finding the slow pitch of a languid sine wave. Bucky silences him with a long, slow kiss that parts their lips and allows their tongues to scribe the unspoken words of love between them. He waits until the powerful body under him arches up, pressing into his chest, and slides the belt quickly around Steve's wrists. He knows half a dozen ways to secure a person in seconds, but the simple tie is artless. Even so, the stiff leather disobeys him, refusing to bend and twist.

When he is done, any strong application of force would snap the knot apart. His handiwork serves its purpose. Steve releases a shuddering sigh, and opens his eyes, dawning lust darkening the rich azure.

Bucky trembles in response. He retreats down the bed, mirroring the spear length of Steve's body spread out for his pleasure against the comforter. When he reaches the end of the mattress, he steps free of the pants and slides the underwear down to join them as a yoked hobble. Steve's cock springs free -- proud, tall, dusky and dripping.

Rather than hone on his final target, he strokes his hands along Steve's firm quads. His hands hitch beneath his knees and shove them as wide as the clothing will allow. The movement thrusts the blond up the bed, his bound hands grabbing the headboard for support. Wood creaks in the most delicious alarm, and Bucky bends to plant rows of soft kisses across the steep plateaus of Steve's chest.

He pauses to suckle on a nipple, teasing it hard, and then sinking his teeth lightly into the base. Tugging and pulling soon has Steve thrusting his hips in time, the cascade of moans taking on a desperate cant. He lashes his tongue in circles and spirals until certain the nub is at peak sensitivity. Then he softly drags it through his teeth, stretched out, released to spring back against the dark areola.

Steve's cries braid into a lyrical assault growing louder by the second when he focuses upon the other nipple. The bed rocks beneath them. Bucky relies on the mattress for support, his legs pressed hard up against the frame. Long fingers follow the grooves of sharply defined pectoral muscles, drawn ever lower, slowed by the immense magnetism that beckons.

A show of calm settles over him as he marches south across the corrugated plain of Steve's abdomen, watched as he tongues over the clenching, hard muscles. Some last traces of salt remain, but beneath, the taste is all Steve. Frantic flutters dance under his lips the further he descends, detouring to plant more kisses along the saddle of a hip bone.

“You're killing me,” Steve whispers in a strangled tone.

“The French call an orgasm _la petite morte._ The little death,” Bucky says. He always was the more facile in the language.

“Bless the French.” The taller man drops his head back onto the pillow, straining not to move, and failing utterly when Bucky strays away from his hip to his inner thigh.

Neither does he lay a kiss on the blond, but a proper bite. His nails drag a meandering course across the nest of soft golden curls around the root of Steve's shaft, and then on to the opposite thigh. All control left in his best friend shatters at the whispery contrail left by his thumb. He draws a scalloped line across the heavy sac to the tune of a sobbing cry.

“I can't-- Buck, I can't--”

Bucky closes his fingers around Steve's cock finally, _finally_. A lifetime of waiting and he draws his closed fingers up the satin smooth length from root to tip.

Head thrown back, Steve loses himself to the madness. His shoulders heave down, torso cantilevered up in a broad arch. Heels strike the bed, but his legs cannot possibly open any further without tearing the ruined trousers to pieces. Tempting as that is, Bucky isn't ready to let him release. He strokes slowly up and down, imparting the odd quick squeeze to force Steve to a plateau.

Slow, deliberate torture leaves sweat beaded on the blond's brow, his eyes clenched shut. Thank goodness for the solid metal bars or else the headboard would be torn apart with every spasm. Bucky moves slowly, lowering his head far enough that his long, loose chestnut hair adds another sensual dimension when the strands brush over the sensitized region.

He loves the way Steve's mouth forms a fixed oval of taut surprise and his face is hollowed by lust. How his heels pound into the floor, skidding forward when he loses a foothold.

It can't go on forever. When he finally releases the thick shaft, clear liquid beads and flows freely over the side.

“Lube?” One word is all he speaks. One, pregnant with meaning.

Steve takes a few tries to find his tongue, and his hazy response is incredibly endearing. “Bathroom.”

Bucky strides off, a navy and jet ghost painted against the cool afternoon sunlight stealing through the blinds. A quick survey of neatly organized drawers secures what he wants, a bottle tucked behind others. It's still three-quarters full, good for their purposes. Even in his little luxuries, Steve Rogers can be called methodical and orderly. Some things never really change.

He pours out a generous amount over his hands, walking back into the bedroom where his lover awaits in all his fraught glory. Still rigidly hard, bound by the belt, refusing to touch himself.

Steve's eyes glisten, more turbulent than he has seen for days. At the moment of the verdict, he looked similarly uncertain, adrift in a wild sea.

“Let me be your sanctuary, your safe harbour,” he finds himself quoting in a hushed voice.

Their gaze meets. Bucky settles in at the end of the bed, and before his slick hands despoil the image, he bends over to take that hard length in his mouth. He never learned the fine art of pleasuring Steve with his mouth. They never had time. Had the war not interrupted, perhaps they might have practiced on lazy, sun-drenched afternoons in their airless apartment or in whatever shoebox his army salary could buy.

So many could have beens and never hads; he pushes away the wistful poignancy. Steve trembles, struggling for stillness, and goes sharp and rigid when Bucky's tongue curls around his crown and slides lower.

All he wants and needs is right here. He slurps once for good measure and begins to suck in earnest, finding a natural groove for the heavy length to slide over his lips. Lapping transforms into slow bobs of his head.

“Buck. Oh God, I need to move,” Steve hurriedly stammers from above.

His hands are bound. He still hasn't done more than pushed himself up against the mattress, ensuring that Bucky has unrestricted access. Nuzzling low, the brunet takes all he can, feeling the pressure at the back of his throat. One more swallow might take the tip further, into deeper, unimagined fathoms. But he retreats, dragging his lips back over the veins coated in his saliva, across the flushed skin all the way to the top.

He pauses, pursing his lips. “Mmhmm,” comes out as little more than a vibration.

“Oh _fuck_.” The blond almost howls.  

Steve has an unrestricted view of his cock leaving his best friend's mouth and that sends him over. He thrusts repeatedly into the molten heat wrapped around him, and gasps whenever the swinging curtain of dark hair reveals a new angle.

“I'm going to come. Bucky, I'm-- I'm…” Words cease to have meaning. The world dwindles down to the seal of Bucky's lips, the lave of his tongue.

Bucky tastes salt on his lips and swallows, greeted by a much greater wave poured across his lips. He drinks of it, the essence of his love in a heated gush. Steve tosses his head, twisting from the waist, pinned down by the assassin’s forearms resting against his upper thighs.

He backs off when Steve starts shaking, and wraps his hand around the length. Even that contact is too much, slick with lube and warm. His other dripping hand trails underneath, finding the narrow divide. The blond man turns unfocused eyes on the assassin, panting.

“You're incredible. I love you being so open with me. Trusting me,” Bucky murmurs. The sound is the lifeline reeling Steve back from silver shores beyond conscious thought.

His fingertip steals up, preparing the way to the dark star. Steve's hips rise, allowing him access, easing skidding the long digit up to the tender rim. The first delicate nudge sets the blond shaking again, still wildly sensitive from his climax.

His puckered ring tightens at the first tease. Even in the Forties, they never got this far, though they flirted and kissed and explored one another.

No fear shows in that clear, open expression. Steve has a special brand of earnestness in the afterglow. “You're gonna kill me.”

“That's the plan.” Bucky focuses on drawing half circles around the ring, slowly tracing his fingertip back and forth. Only pleasure, no pain. “Is this too much?”

Steve shakes his head roughly and drops back onto the pillows. Trying to see anything from his angle is difficult and that's the whole point.

Bucky settles back and releases Steve's cock after stroking it twice for good measure, prompt and quick. The slick sheen left in his fingers’ wake highlights the rigid length beautifully. Among other things, the serum dramatically enhanced their refractory period -- a fact he intends to exploit, though not without giving Steve a chance to catch his breath.

He never properly gives Steve the chance, in all fairness. He stands again and starts opening his pants, the snag of the zipper enough to rouse the blond man from his orgasmic reverie. His eyes snap open and he stares as Bucky slowly unpeels the waistband and shoves his pants lower. Enough to give a glimpse of his achingly hard cock, soon taken in hand. The brunet watches him while stroking himself, a moderately quick tempo soon bringing a thick droplet to the slit, something he smoothes along with the lube.

“Please,” Steve moans.

“It feels good. Not as good as you,” Bucky answers, thrusting faster into his own hand. Never the metal palm; this he reserves for the right side alone.

“I need you in me.”

“Watch. You see how much I want you?”

Steve cries out in despair and mingled arousal. He hardens before Bucky's very eyes.

His jacket remains fastened, his pants clinging to his hips, that obscene glance destroying his propriety. Every small movement transmits a frisson of electrified pleasure through him, and he may reach his peak faster than intended with the magnetic weight of Steve's gaze taking in everything.

Mark up _exhibitionist_ on the list of private kinks being discovered in their forays. Bucky almost laughs, but he whisks his hand away.

The sounds escaping his mouth are incoherent bits of sound. Necessity in Siberia taught him to be silent, never discovered by his handlers. He can reach a peak without uttering a grunt. But this is Steve, and Steve deserves to know how much he pleases him. Bucky fights instinct, giving those morsels of a groan or a sigh. The blond devours every offering.

“Are you gonna come for me?”

The question comes from so very far away. He meant to halt, he really did. But Bucky's worldview lurches out of sync and he buckles onto his knees on the bed, his hand sliding back to himself. Everything is a frenzy of action when his control snaps, and he bends, kissing Steve, rubbing himself against the flat of his groin. Those bound arms descend and loop over his neck. Dimly he feels kicking and hears the corresponding tear, anything for Steve to wrap his legs around Bucky's own.

They never reach that far before he starts to move, shifting his grip so they rest alongside one another, making stroking the blond's shaft easier. His own thrusts press in, demanding attention, and Steve's tongue pierces his teeth just as he releases.

His cry is barely audible at all. Instinct rules sense. He bows his head and breaks under the heavenly ascent. Strong wrists locked by a belt press down to keep him close and he shelters Steve as he shakes in the throes of long held need.

All the stars in the sky erupt into a pane of white fire that consumes the conscious mind of James Barnes. He is blown to the sky and ceases to be, erased, thoughts blank.

That, truly, is bliss of a kind known only to the gods.

“I love you,” the blond whispers through the harder kisses when Bucky returns to himself. His arm somehow encircled Steve's waist.

He can't feel his feet and may have lost track of his fingers. But he knows exactly how he feels in that sunlit paradise. “I love you, Steve.”

They nestle together until the world returns somewhat to normal, though Bucky isn't surprised to discover his arousal has hardly flagged in the least. Their close embrace allows regathering of scattered wits and then, without a word, he rolls onto his back, flipping Steve atop him.

The startled look he receives from the golden-haired captain teases out the old, easy grin from hiding. Rare to see that nowadays. Steve smiles right back.

They don't need words right then. Like the old days, they operate off signals and expressions. He settles firmly onto his back and brings his vibranium hand, slick still from the lube and his release, onto Steve's hip. Neither of them mind the wash of pearl painted across his stomach and Steve's groin, still dripping wet.

His fingers trace the proud cleft between Steve's buttocks, and resume the interrupted task of teasing the little hole back there. He has all the time in the world, feeling the slick lubricant and painting it across the core. His mouth settles lightly upon Steve's shoulder, imparting languid kisses again.

So slow, compared to the heated thrusts soon pushing back against the digits. Steve is undulating on him again, his bound wrists caught between their chests. A good yank throws the belt free and finally his freed hands are put to good use, lost in Bucky's hair, stroking along his flanks.

“This is about you. What do you think you're doing?”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Steve insists, and they do.

Bucky persists in flirting with that tight hole, working a fingertip gently in and out. He lavished teasing pressure, pushing down and withdrawing, until the resistance fades. Replaced instead by a warm, clinging tension, he soon thrusts one digit up to the first knuckle, then the second when Steve damn near impales himself as the pace is too slow for his liking.

One finger twins into two in short order then, and he keeps thrusting slow and steady, enough to let the taller man grow accustomed to the invasion. He tips his backside higher to take the full length, though his kisses slow and his eyes remain closed. Sweat dances on his brow.

“Good?”

“Real intense, that's all.”

“Relax. I'll go slower--”

“ _No._ ” Steve almost shouts. His eyes widen and his expression, scattered and diffuse with inward thoughts, slips into something softer. “Please, it feels good, don't stop.”

Bucky suckles on his lower lip and flips his wrist. It isn't easy; their position hardly works to his advantage, but he loves the skin to skin contact, the way he feels everything and sees the constant changes to Steve's expression. His fingertips seek out the little spot where nerves cluster dense and tight, and pushes. Like dousing for water or gold, except the results are immediate.

When he finds it, Steve gasps for breath and buries his face against Bucky's chest. Guttural moans go deeper still while the assassin circles that nodule, pressing down every few rotations. He feels the heat leaking sticky and hot against his belly to tell him he struck true.

The dazed wonder on Steve's face is considerable. He grinds down, and encouraging that, Bucky pushes up on his shoulder. “Hold the headboard.”

After the blond complies, Bucky slides his hand between them and strokes the leaking length of the man's cock with difficulty as he thrusts his fingers in. Steve nearly collapses atop him again, his arm going totally rigid as he is properly milked.

Trembling becomes outright shaking, and his cock weeps a cobweb strands of precum that Bucky only briefly pauses to bring to his lips. It tastes of salt and cream, and the third time he pauses to lap the back of his vibranium hand, the blond seizes his wrist and lifts it to his lips.

He almost comes right then and there, watching Steve taste himself. Obviously not for the first time, at that.

Two can play at teasing apparently.

He pulls out his hand from the softened pucker, and scoots up the bed, pulling Steve with him. No more patience remains for this, for teasing of any sort. Bucky pushes himself up, staring in wonder again on Steve. That his best friend should harbour this love still shocks him, startles him to a depth beyond words.

Releasing the headboard, Steve hesitates. He strokes Bucky's face and his chest, and in that foray, the assassin understands.

“On your back?” It's barely a question, tiptoeing along the edge of a command.

A flicker of relief wells up in those beautiful cornflower eyes and Steve ceases to straddle him. Another time, they'll try. Another time: there will be a lifetime of more. Bucky's cheeks ache from the smile curving his mouth.

He stretches out next to the blond, stroking his cock and kissing him again until bringing Steve back to a boil. His fingers splay to tease and pet the heavy sac under the thick shaft, and that has Steve pulling his knees up, spreading his legs. No other invitation is needed. Bucky rolls into a crouch, positioning himself between Steve's feet.

He tips Steve's knees closer to his chest, and gains his first glimpse of that rosy, dark hole waiting for him. The momentary hesitation owed to applying more lube to himself has Steve moaning his name softly, louder when Bucky paints another curlicue of slickness around that soft pucker. He can't help but dab more inside, stroking in short, quick pulses of his hand until Steve's eyes are showing more white than blue. His fingers emerge from the gripping muscle reluctant to let him go, and he's ready.

He's been ready for eighty years.

Steve has been waiting as long for him.

No longer. He aligns himself, pressing against the tender muscle. Two fingers are nothing compared to taking his cock, and he pushes gently, giving Steve time to adjust. The nudges of his tip upon the ring gradually cause it to dilate, fit to take more of the bell-shaped end. Bucky bites his lip, his hand tight on the blond man's thigh and the other on his hip. Checking the urge to hilt himself is like throwing a bucket of water on a forest fire, but it has to be enough.

Slowly he pushes his way in through the taut ring, gasping as the reddened band of muscle stretches wide enough for the head of his cock and snaps shut. Lube glistens and makes the process near frictionless for him, but he halts. Steve's shallow breathing reduced to nary a whisper fragments when he ceases to advance.

“More,” is all he can spare.

Bucky thrusts his vibranium hand out for the headboard to curb himself against a hard, claiming rock of his pelvis. His hips tremble, back muscles vibrating like a harp string wound too tight. Gasps press out from his chest. Perspiration runs down his back.

“Steve…”

“More,” Steve murmurs with a bit more insistence, and the pause is killing him as much as it slays the brunet.

He never wants to hurt Steve. Steve does everything to protect him. Ground down to a stalemate by compassion and kindness, Bucky can't help but laugh inwardly, loosening that ironclad control over himself. The tempo is so slow, painfully even, a few fractions of an inch forward and then back. Even so, progress sinks more of his length into Steve, and the moment his tip brushes over the blond's prostate, he nearly ends up buried to the balls.

Steve convulses and the velvety walls wrap tight around him, muscle gripping his cock like a shackle. It is glorious and sublime, so much a shock when Steve rises that he pushes in naturally to the black hole calling his name. His outstretched arm stops him from going too far, but by then they are committed. Whatever pain lingers is a short-lived thing tended by careful, considerate movement and sinking down, wrapping his arm around the quaking soldier.

Kisses of a feverish heat clash on their lips. Bucky sets that regular tempo, as quick as he deems safe, driving in as deep as he can go and pulling back. He sways to the lyrical rhythm of their tangled heartbeats drumming against the reedy sighs and darker groans. This is how storms build, slow and inevitable, as they gather steam and force over the horizon.

Steve clutches at his buttocks, fingers denting bruising handholds along his hips. He invites the wash of familiar, dim pain that melts into euphoric highs. Everything settles on the white-hot point of light between them, beckoning him to move. Bucky forgets everything outside the bead, ignoring the ominous creak of the stressed frame and the thumping headboard. His best friend -- his lover -- is open to him, calling for him, leading him onward to well-earned rest.

His back bows to the unbearable pressure exerted by the quivering, clenching hole around his length. Whenever he bottoms out, he grinds down, and Steve transfers his hand to his own cock. The view is incredible, watching how he sinks inside and the muscles tensing and bunching in the taller man's belly transform into waves that massage and caress him from every angle.

The pangs come faster now, quick to the rise and fall of Steve's fist. He picks up speed, answering the primal beat old as time. Harder, deeper. Bucky sets his teeth. He sets his back against the pull. His knees press in hard to the mattress under Steve's arching back, lifting thighs. Legs twist around his hips and flex, pulling him nearer.

As if balls deep were not enough. Steve is right. It isn't.

He drives himself deep, seeking absolution in the wholeness of them together. Under him, the blond man trembles and moves with him, like dancers circling the floor, sliding back into true. Withdrawal is a punishment, scourging him as he pulls free of that tight, warm grip. Loose and quick, he rocks his hips to plow deep into the unknown depths. This is heaven unending. He yearns for it to never end. His fingers traverse their courses freely over Steve’s legs and across his chest, rediscovering familiar terrain and paying attention to those weak spots that cause his beloved friend to clench his hole and groan in pleasure.

Nipples plucked and twisted swell to firmness, blushed dark as a rainforest fruit. He flicks them with his thumb and feels the walls spasm around him. Tugging the left and the right sets the blond man to arching his back, while the constriction around Bucky’s girth spikes to the point he sees stars, almost in pain. Almost. Nothing so sweet can really hurt though the beleaguered, abused ring clenches in minute twinges.

He adds more lube, running his metal digits in cooling circles, giving apology and soldiering on. Love and a fiendish streak of mischief melt into an improbable alloy holding out against that intense heat poured around him, and he fondles Steve’s balls. Tucked tight and high, they roll across his palm. Steve plays a virtuoso’s seductive aria when he starts to trail his nails lightly over the grooved surface, drizzling wetness.

‘Bucky. I can’t keep going,” he pants in time to the steady drag of the assassin’s cock against his rim.

“I’ve got it.” He nudges Steve’s hand away. The thick length of the blond’s manhood throbs, pointed straight at his bunched belly.

Sweet, to hear the worry stripped naked by lust. “I’ll come.”

“Then,” Bucky rolls his thumb around the crown, gathering up the slickness. He licks it away while Steve watches, and more drizzles out freely. That he captures and paints in a stripe down his beloved friend’s mouth to his chin, admiring the clear glaze. “Go ahead and come. I love you.”

Magic words unlock everything for Steve. His eyes roll back when Bucky takes over from his fist, stroking and settling back into the rhythm. Keeping the pace with the drumbeat of the headboard rocking against the wall becomes second nature. His metal hand grips Steve’s hip, his warm fingers traversing up and down in steady motions. Hard to stay smooth when the tandem assault has the blond tossing his head and wrapping his legs tightly around Bucky’s waist, beating a tattoo on the back of his thigh.

Steve cries out as he comes, and the slick, pure ropes splash over Bucky’s pumping fist. He quivers to the powerful earthquake unleashed within him, his hips tilting, almost frantic to continue. The deep, powerful waves pull the brunet soldier to the very edge and he clenches his teeth, fighting against the seductive allure of his own release with all he’s got. He thinks of electric shocks and cryochambers and that pissant Swiss scientist who inflicted terror, and even that barely keeps a toehold on sanity.

Torture mellows when sinking past Steve’s trembling ring, and his breath hitches in soft gasps that betray how close he tiptoes to losing his load. Liquid sounds escape his parted lips as he throws his head back, ablaze in the loving glow of dreams manifest. Hands shake and push harder on the blond’s hip, releasing the semi-hard cock to spare Steve any pain. Instead he rakes his fingers through his loose hair, swallowed into the mechanical rhythm that carries on without his conscious volition.

His will crumbles while the world melts, and he feels the pulsing heat pull him in deep, deeper.

“You’re so good, Stevie.”

“That’s it, don’t stop.”

Stop? Not possible. “Never. So hot. You know how good this feels?” Dark lashes flutter. The assassin simply feels, a lightning rod for every minute tingle. He knows what it feels like to dance in the heart of a thunderstorm, motes electric on his skin, buoyed alive by incremental ripples as that dark void envelopes him. “Perfect.”

Steve seizes his cum-slick hand and pulls it to his lips. The soft kiss to the print of his middle finger almost sends him collapsing on the bed. Bucky slows -- he has to, he has no other choice -- but stares fixated while the blond suckles on his fingertips so sweetly, rubbing his cheek against the twinging palm. The soft vacuum builds on the digit while Steve’s reddened mouth pulls his digit deeper to meet the loving curl of tongue and pinch of teeth.

A dull and distant echo of what he feels, fucking his best friend, making love to his hero, worshipping his guiding star. The dual pronged impressions roll over him and he swipes at his jacket, pulling the throat open hastily.

“Come for me,” the blond calls for him from the bed.

And who is he to deny Steve Rogers? His grip tightens, hard, staking claim against society still unsure of flavours of love. Staking claim against everyone, from the shadows of long dead Zola to his own fright.

“Steve,” he shouts, his plea ringing off the ceiling and seeping into the floorboards. He stitches his wishes into the very flesh, losing control of himself in the free fall to climax. Speed with which he surrenders terrifies him.

The blond understands somehow, meeting him in the last sprint. Lost in a swirl of starlight, Bucky bends to close the distance, buried so impossibly deep. They join for a final rapturous kiss, fingers seeking and linked together, the gunfire staccato of his hips pounding down against the tender spot that sends them both into a supernova.

He loses all sense save the tightening ring milking him and the elastic snap of reality vanishing into suspended eternity. All senses sheet out in whiteness. Bucky cries out in a voice he cannot hear, words of praise caught in the upturned grail of Steve's mouth, until he, too, is sent hurtling into oblivion.

They collapse into one another, entangled limbs and damp sheets thrashed into a mockery of the grey ocean beyond. Heartbeats synchronize to a single gallop, their breaths twined as much as their bodies. Exhaustion drains all cares away, leaving only a perfect sense of completion and wholeness, limned by the blush of joy.

Glacial epochs spread and retreat before the first flickers of thought penetrate the opalescent afterglow settled upon him. Independently moving his hand takes incredible effort, and erratic breathing a touch too swift still puddles along his collarbone. Slowly he feels for the soft hair, he tender lips bruised at the final force of their kisses, learning the contours of the beloved face afresh. He strokes his thumb lazily over the proud cheekbone while fragments of memory piece together.

“Hey,” he says, proud of the achievement of conjuring thoughts and expressing them.

“Mmm.”

His skin vibrates with a satisfied rumble. Another sweep of his thumb outlines Steve’s face. The feathery lightness of a kiss wisps along his lips, more imagined than real, but that kindles a small flame of deepening joy. The blond nestles into him. Steve turns under him, ever the magnetic heart of their union, and the slow shift of the earth’s axis mirrors the rotation that brings them together, wrapped up in one another’s arms, facing one another.

“I don’t want to ever leave,” Bucky whispers.

“Don’t.”

“Never. Stay like this always.”

“My belt’s digging into my hip,” Steve murmurs, and pecks a kiss to the dimple denting his cheek. “You got a plan for that?”

The brown-haired man blinks and then laughs, and the sound loosens the last of a weight in place for so long. “How about you on top?”

“Lucky I can raise my head and you want to go another round?”

“I intend to proposition you until the end of time, and a bit beyond that,” Bucky replies, the wisecrack retort deprived of thorns, all laughter again. “If you’ll have me, Captain Rogers.”

“Buck, I’d give life itself to have you exactly like this. Safe, happy. With me.” Their fingers link, and Steve lowers his head, drawn close to the darker haired man. They fit neatly together, legs thrown carelessly over one another, bodies all but glowing under the deepening light.

“Forever, Steve.” Bucky presses his brow to the blond’s, the way they did under the covers as kids, whispering about legends and stories and dreams. “Us together.”

“Always. I love you.”

Steve's grin brands his lips. It coaxes a smile from the assassin.

That love washes clean Bucky of all sins.   

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A happy ending for Stucky~ <3 A thousand thank yous to you, reader, and to Cryofreeze and my hidden cabal of beta-readers. You know who you are. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to everyone reading this far into my Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2018 contribution.


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